Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Monitoring the GAME PLAN
As I continue to work on my GAME plan I have found that it is getting easier. I am currently working on the earthqauke section of science. The students have done some research pertaining to earthquakes and put together a small project about how and why earthquakes occur. In order to get them motivated do to the research I allowed them to use the internet and focus on several sites like one that researchers have put together about the San Andreas Fault. Now that the students have completed that project we have spent this week building structures that might withstand an earthquake. The students were given a budget and had to complete a blueprint of a building they believed would withstand an earthquake. Then they used marshmallows and spaghetti to build their building. Tomorrow we are putting them structures to the test using an earthquake generator we have. What I have really seen at work here is the students motivation to get to the final project of building the structure. I told the students ahead of time what the unit was going to consist of and in order to get to the final building assignment we had to do all the other first which meant researching and really learning about earthquakes. After this unit I can't wait for the unit on volcanoes.
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Rachael,
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like your students are having so much fun...and learning! I can really see your efforts paying off. The volcano unit should be extremely exciting! You should video it. Very creative!
Susan
Rachel,
ReplyDeleteYour lesson sounds like it has been a powerful activity for your students and it involves a very relevant real-world problem that many places are faced with today. Finding alternative solutions for natural disasters such as earthquakes sounds like an excellent lesson to motivate your students to learn science content. I also like the idea of involving a budget; this makes the problem even more realistic. This was a great PBL activity!
Did you document the activities and project with camera shots or videos?
Rachael,
ReplyDeleteWow! This learning the students are doing is really going to stick with them because you have made it so fun! It sounds like they are staying constantly engaged, and that they are willing to work hard! Great job!
As far as assessment, will you be using a rubric to evaluate their success? Also, will you later have a test of some kind on the content about earthquakes? My school has been talking about assessment a lot laetly, so I was just curious.