Day 1



Laura Shellan

March 12, 2003

EDTEP 587

“What is Life on Earth?”

Seventh grade science

Instructional Unit

Unit Overview

Inglewood Junior High – integrated 7th grade science course, 28 students predominately

Caucasian middle class.

Weekly schedule: 3 - 55minute classes and 1 - 105minute block.

Dates: roughly September to November

Grading Period: 9 weeks - Thinking like a Scientist (5 weeks), What is Life on Earth?

(4weeks)

Overall Unit: The emphasis for the 9 week grading period will be for the students first to learn what inquiry is and to gain the skills and knowledge to carry out their own inquiry. Then this section will be followed with students exploring the characteristics and needs of living things within the context of thinking like a scientist. This means that the characteristics and processes of life will be learned through utilizing the process of inquiry.

Thinking like a Scientist (Beginning 5 weeks): Students will learn how to: (1) Build a knowledge base to prepare for inquiry, (2) Craft questions, hypotheses, predictions (though, they will only be tested on hypotheses and predictions), (3) Design and conduct the investigation, (4) Analyze data and represent it as evidence, (5) Reconsider the model and coordinate evidence and theory. This will all be done within the context of learning about food webs, bio-diversity, interdependence of organisms, symbiosis, energy flow within the environment, and ecosystems. This section will end with students working on environmental pamphlets to be handed out at the Pacific Science Center.

Characteristics of Life(End 4 weeks): The major concepts that will be stressed will be learning the processes of growth, nutrient consumption, stimulus response, reproduction, water requirements, waste elimination, and gas exchange for both single-celled and multi-cellular organisms. Also, the emphasis for this unit will be for students to learn how to gather, analyze, and organize data while using a scientific journal, and then being able to present their findings to an audience. The students will learn how to act as both audience members and presenters. The content is focused on giving students the basic knowledge of what “life” looks like and some of the processes associated with that, while learning some of the skills that scientist use to present ideas. The students will work towards a culminating project to give a presentation addressing the effects of pollution in terms of disrupting the basic processes of the characteristics of life and what that means for the organism. Students have worked on power point presentations before, so there will be just a brief overview to prepare for the students’ culminating project.

UNIT PLAN WILL BE ON CHARACTERISTICS OF LIFE

Essential Question:

“Can a Puget Sound octopus survive an oil spill?”

Students will need to be able to define life and understand the basic processes of the characteristics of life. They will have to be able to recognize the diversity of the characteristics of life for different organisms. Then, students need to be able to recognize homeostasis that occurs in the organism and the interrelationships that exist between the characteristics of life. They will need to understand that energy flows between organisms and the environment and can have a negative or positive effect. Then, students will need to know about pollution on organisms over time and how pollution affects the environment and can disrupt some characteristics of life. Within all this content students will need to know how to carry out the phases of inquiry (they have had experience with this before), how to participate in computer-based presentation atmospheres, and how to keep a journal of their scientific journey.

Unit Objectives (these are the objectives I will be focusing on for this unit from my overall nine week objectives)

Goal 1: Students will learn the process of scientific inquiry in science. (EALR 2.1/ Benchmark 2)

Objective 1.3: Students will learn how to gather, analyze and sort data. (Explanation)

Objective 1:4: Students will learn how to keep a scientific journal.

Goal 2: Students will understand the fundamental concepts and processes of the characteristics of life. (EALR 1.3/Benchmark 2)

Objective 2.1: Students will explain the basic processes and interrelationships of the characteristics of life: exhibit growth, consume nutrients, respond to stimuli, reproduce, require water, eliminate wastes, exchange gases and are composed of cells. (Life Processes and the Flow of Matter and Energy)

Objective 2.2: Students will explain that energy flow and change over time affect the basic processes of life. (Interdependence of Life)

Goal 3: Students will learn how to work with others in a diversity of social situations.

Objective 3.3: Students will learn how to participate in a presentation atmosphere with their peers.

Goal 4: Students will learn how to communicate scientifically. (EALR 2.1/ Benchmark 2)

Objective 4:2: Students will learn how to communicate scientific procedures, investigations, and explanations using computer-based technology. (Communication)

Goal 5: Students will justify protecting the natural world from pollution. (EALR 1.3/ Benchmark 2/ Environmental and Resource Issues)

|Day 1 (55 minutes) |

|1) What will students do? |Students will visit a marine biology lab where they will get a |

| |sense of the pollution effects on ocean life. |

| |Homework: students will write a paragraph each for the following |

| |three questions: (1) What surprised you most about the marine |

| |lab tour and why? (2) What were you interested in learning more |

| |about from the scientists’ and why? (3) What is one thing you can|

| |do personally to help in the fight against pollution? |

|2) Learning objectives for the class? |Goal 5 |

|3) (a) Why introduce idea at this time? |To start off the unit |

| (b) Why this instructional strategy? |Its a “catch” experience, that we can refer back to throughout |

| |the unit |

|4) What evidence of student learning/understanding will you |I will be collecting their reflection paragraphs, and looking to |

|collect? |see if anything about the concept of pollution really affected |

| |them. |

|5) Resources? |Fieldtrip stuff: transportation, permission slips, chaperones, |

| |lunch, etc. |

|Day 2 (block period – 105 minutes) |

|1) What will students do? |We will begin the day with going over our group norms again. |

| |Then the students will be broken up into groups, and will have to|

| |write a list down of what you look for to define something as |

| |“living”. Then each group will be given a list of different |

| |objects/organisms, that they will have to compare their list to. |

| |There will be examples of the objects around the room (picture of|

| |roller coaster, a seed, a rock, etc.). Then as a group we will |

| |come back together to compile the most complete list possible of |

| |what characterizes something as “living” and try to test it with |

| |some of the objects/organisms. |

| |The second hour of the block period students will first be given |

| |an opportunity to see what a journal looks like, how to use a |

| |journal, and how to start up their own journal (this will used |

| |for the rest of the unit). Then they will be given the actual |

| |list of the characteristics of life, and as a group we will |

| |compare that to our class list while going over the definitions. |

| |The rest of the period will be spent with students making up a |

| |pneumonic device to help them remember the characteristics. This|

| |can be made into a rap, a comic strip, a song, or a picture. |

| |Homework: To finish up their pneumonic device if they didn’t in |

| |class. |

|2) Learning objectives for the class? |Objective 2.1, 1.4 |

|3) (a) Why introduce idea at this time? |Students need to know how to define “living” and flush out their |

| |misconceptions before we can go further in this unit. Also, |

| |students will be using their journals for the rest of the unit. |

| (b) Why this instructional strategy? |This allows students to have ownership over the definition of |

| |living, and the basic characteristics of life because they helped|

| |to figure some of them out. |

|4) What evidence of student learning/understanding will you |The pneumonic device, because I am most concerned with students |

|collect? |being able to memorize the characteristics of life. |

|5) Resources? |Journal example, pneumonic device example, different types of |

| |objects with some characteristics of life |

|Day 3/ Day 4 |

|1) What will students do? |We will start off the day with a discussion about what a “good” |

| |presentation looks like and how to be a “good” audience member. |

| |Then, students will be broken up into groups and will become |

| |experts on one aspect of the characteristics of life (I will hand|

| |out information sheets). I will model what bulleted information |

| |looks like. They will be expected to present their “findings” to|

| |the class with some sort of skit, or commercial activity. Along |

| |with their presentation students will give out some bulleted |

| |information for their life characteristic to the whole class (I |

| |will make copies for each student). |

| |Homework: |

| |Making sure their findings are placed into their journals with |

| |section headings. |

|2) Learning objectives for the class? |Objectives 1.4, 2.1, 3.3 |

|3) (a) Why introduce idea at this time? |Students will be expected to give a formal presentation at the |

| |end of the unit, so I want to familiarize students as soon as |

| |possible with the presentation atmosphere. Also, students must |

| |be able to understand the characteristics of life to be able to |

| |recognize the effects of pollution. |

| (b) Why this instructional strategy? |Since this is a lot of information, by having students become |

| |“experts” they are taking ownership for their own learning. |

| |Also, the skit/commercial allows students to be creative with the|

| |lecturing. |

|4) What evidence of student learning/understanding will you |I will collect an initial copy of their bulleted list to see |

|collect? |where students are at, and then to help guide them in preparing |

| |for their presentations. |

|5) Resources? |Information sheets on the different characteristics of life, |

| |example of bulleted information |

|Day 5 |

|1) What will students do? |The first part of the day I will lecture on the diversity of the |

| |characteristics of life, and then we will follow with students |

| |participating in a jeopardy-like game show. The sections will be|

| |the characteristics of life, and each question will deal with the|

| |information covered on the diversity of the characteristics of |

| |life (example: nutrient consumption can be a plant absorbing |

| |sunlight, carnivores, herbivores, bacteria living off of sulfur, |

| |etc.). |

| |Homework: |

| |Reading their textbook as a supplement to this information. As |

| |groups they are allowed to break up the reading and then share |

| |with their classmates the section they read. |

|2) Learning objectives for the class? |Objective 2.1 |

|3) (a) Why introduce idea at this time? |This idea of the characteristics of life showing up differently |

| |in different organisms gives students a little preparation for |

| |the lab they will be conducting for the next few days. It is |

| |important for students to recognize there is diversity within the|

| |characteristics of life. |

| (b) Why this instructional strategy? |Using a game show to solidify the students’ understanding brings |

| |the far off world of science into their personal understandings. |

| |This will make the information more relevant simply in the form |

| |it is being presented in. |

|4) What evidence of student learning/understanding will you |How the students are understanding and answering the questions |

|collect? |will give me a better understanding of where the class is at in |

| |both understanding the basic processes of the characteristics of |

| |life, but also the diversity within them. |

|5) Resources? |Jeopardy board and questions |

|Day 6 (block period) |

|1) What will students do? |Students will explain what they read the night before, and each |

| |group is expected to jot one piece of information they think is |

| |important into their journal from each section read by a student |

| |in their group. As a class, we will share each piece of |

| |information for each section, and so all the students have the |

| |same information jotted down in their journal. Then students |

| |will work on a potato bug lab the rest of the period. This will |

| |specifically focus on students learning Phase 1 of inquiry. |

| |First, the class will head to the library, where the librarian |

| |will introduce students to research skills using the internet and|

| |other information sources. Second, students (in pairs) will pick|

| |one question out of four (example: How much food do potato bugs |

| |eat during twenty-four hours?). Then they will pick one web |

| |sites and one resource book from a list I give them to learn |

| |about potato bugs, and more specifically what their question |

| |applies to. Students must record both the question and the |

| |resources they explored, along with pieces of bulleted |

| |information (in their journals) they have learned from their |

| |research that will be useful for their inquiry. I will go around|

| |and do journal checks at the end of the period. |

|2) Learning objectives for the class? |1.3 (gathering data) |

|3) (a) Why introduce idea at this time? |This is a fairly easy subject to understand, and so it will give |

| |students an opportunity earlier in the unit to start working on |

| |their research skills. |

| (b) Why this instructional strategy? |Having the librarian explain the ways to research will give the |

| |students’ an “experts” point-of-view. This shows the students |

| |how serious research is for the discipline of science. |

|4) What evidence of student learning/understanding will you |Throughout the whole research process I will be circulating the |

|collect? |room and asking questions to assess students’ understanding. At |

| |the end of the period I will actually check their journals to see|

| |what sort of end information was gotten. |

|5) Resources? |Librarian, resource list |

|Day 7 |

|1) What will students do? |As a class we will start off with an observation activity that |

| |allows students to understand how to take observations, and data |

| |points. Students will then hypothesize what the answer to their |

| |question will be based off of the research they did the day |

| |before. They will record this in their journals. Then the |

| |students will start on phase 3 of inquiry (we will not be |

| |covering how to ask questions in this unit) and have to design |

| |the sort of experiment they want to set up with the materials I |

| |have provided them. Before any student is allowed to carry out |

| |their experiment, they must okay their idea with me beforehand. |

| |Then students will conduct their experiment while writing down |

| |observations. |

| |Homework: To organize their lab journals, and make sure they are|

| |staying up to date. I will be doing lab checks the next day. |

|2) Learning objectives for the class? |Objectives 1.3, 1.4 |

|3) (a) Why introduce idea at this time? |Since, students have already done the research it is the perfect |

| |time for them to design the experiment for the question they want|

| |to answer. Also, learning how to observe and take data points is|

| |important for carrying out any experiment. |

| (b) Why this instructional strategy? |It allows students to participate in inquiry, and it gives them |

| |creativity to design their own experiment. |

|4) What evidence of student learning/understanding will you |I will check out how they are going to design the experiment to |

|collect? |see if they understand what they are really trying to explore. |

| |Also, I will be formally assessing by walking around and seeing |

| |how students carry out their experiments and gather data. |

|5) Resources? |Experiment material |

|Day 8 |

|1) What will students do? |I will begin the day by taking sample data points, and showing |

| |students how to compile them into a table or columns, and then as|

| |a class to try and figure out any trends we see. Then they will |

| |have time to work with their own data to put in a table or |

| |columns and figure out any trends that are arising. The rest of |

| |the class will be spent with students finishing up their projects|

| |by writing on a poster (they will have a example poster to look |

| |at) their question, their hypothesis, their evidence, and |

| |whether they agreed with their hypothesis (why or why not). We |

| |will post these around the room. |

|2) Learning objectives for the class? |Objective 1.3 |

|3) (a) Why introduce idea at this time? |Students need to know what are ways to deal with the information |

| |once they have gathered it, this is helping them carry out phase |

| |4 of inquiry. These strategies give students tangible ways to |

| |organize their data, and then be able to analyze it for what is |

| |going on. It is also important for students to look back at what|

| |they originally thought was going to happen compared to what |

| |actually resulted. This makes students really assess what |

| |actually happened. |

| (b) Why this instructional strategy? |By having the class work together as a group, I am trying to |

| |model how it is you go about organizing your data so that it |

| |won’t be so intimidating for the students. Then the students are|

| |held accountable to their process of inquiry because they must |

| |present what they have done in a public forum (poster on the |

| |wall). |

|4) What evidence of student learning/understanding will you |I will be looking at their completed posters to see if students |

|collect? |were able to understand how to organize data, and then use it as |

| |evidence. |

|5) Resources? |Sample poster, sample data points |

|Day 9 |

|1) What will students do? |I will begin by explaining that there are interrelationships |

| |between the characteristics of life and that they do can not |

| |necessarily function on their own. Then I will explain how each |

| |organism has a certain standard (homeostasis) at which the |

| |characteristics of life function and it is not healthy for them |

| |when it is disturbed (example: I need so much oxygen as a human |

| |or I die). The students will break up into groups and be given a|

| |murder mystery to solve. In the murder mystery case is |

| |information, and the groups have to solve the case using the |

| |clues and witness interviews. The students have to figure out |

| |which characteristic of live was messed with (no food, no water, |

| |scared, suffocated, etc.) and they will present their findings to|

| |the class. Then as a group we talk about how that affects all |

| |the other characteristics. This is to get at the |

| |interrelationships between the characteristics of life. |

| |Homework: |

| |Students will get to do a crossword puzzle that is all about the |

| |characteristics of life. |

|2) Learning objectives for the class? |Objective 2.1, 3.3 |

|3) (a) Why introduce idea at this time? |Homeostasis is such a vital part of the characteristics of life, |

| |along with the dependency of a lot of the characteristics. This |

| |is a good time to learn before going into pollution, so that the |

| |students’ can understand why disruption occurs. |

| (b) Why this instructional strategy? |The murder mystery is a fun way to get the kids engaged with the |

| |knowledge they have built up. The students’ can utilize their |

| |information by transferring their knowledge to solve for other |

| |problems. |

|4) What evidence of student learning/understanding will you |I will be listening to their presentations in class, along with |

|collect? |collecting the crossword puzzles to gain understanding. |

|5) Resources? |Crossword puzzles, Murder Mystery packets |

|Day 10 (block period) |

|1) What will students do? |The first part of the period we will start the day with a |

| |demonstration of the flow of electrical energy (something fun to |

| |get their attention). Then I will lecture on the flow of energy |

| |between an organism and its environment and what that looks like,|

| |providing examples of it. The students in their groups will be |

| |diagramming their own energy flow chart of different environments|

| |(ocean, mountains, deserts, etc.) using a guide to direct them of|

| |some of the main points. Each group will present their flow |

| |chart at the end of the first hour. The second hour will be |

| |spent with students going through a lab with different stations |

| |detailing positive and negative effects on different organisms. |

| |Students will go around in their groups and have to follow out |

| |the instructions for each activity station with the props |

| |provided. For example a volcanic eruption negatively effects |

| |many plants and animals, students will get to see ash rocks, and |

| |pictures of before and after of Mt. St. Helen. Then they get to |

| |use a computer-simulated volcanic eruption and record the |

| |information that is given. This lab will take up most of the |

| |hour. Students will be given two lab write-ups after completing |

| |the labs, and use their notes in their lab books to pick two |

| |activity stations to write about. |

| |Homework: |

| |The students will complete their lab write-ups at home. |

|2) Learning objectives for the class? |Objective 1.3, 1.4, 2.2 |

|3) (a) Why introduce idea at this time? |This is the beginning of the pollution section of this unit. |

| |Students can see that energy flows to and from an organism and |

| |its environment through the consuming of nutrients, water |

| |requirements, elimination of waste, and the exchange of gases. |

| |And that the environment can positively or negatively affect an |

| |organism, which will lead in well to pollution. |

| (b) Why this instructional strategy? |Students will go through the flow chart so that they can have a |

| |more tangible understanding of how energy flows between an |

| |organism and its environment. The activity lab allows students |

| |to see how even “normal” events can have negative effects. |

|4) What evidence of student learning/understanding will you |I will be collecting the flow charts, and their lab write-ups to |

|collect? |see how students are understanding the concepts. |

|5) Resources? |Energy demonstration, activity stations |

|Day 11 |

|1) What will students do? |The students will look at water samples from different sources |

| |and have to guess which place they are from (some of these will |

| |be pretty gross from pollution – sewer water). Then I will |

| |lecture on what pollution is and how pollution can environments |

| |over time. Then in small groups the students will list out |

| |different types of pollution that they know of, and we will share|

| |in a large group. These will be written in their lab books. I |

| |will add to the list any that were not mention and explain some |

| |of the main types of pollution. This information will be |

| |supplemented with pictures of the effects of pollution (example: |

| |Los Angeles’ sky full of gas exhaust). |

| |Homework: |

| |The students will read about pollution in their textbooks, and |

| |fill out a worksheet on pollution. This will be started on in |

| |class. |

|2) Learning objectives for the class? |Objective 2.2, Goal 5 |

|3) (a) Why introduce idea at this time? |This will allow students to understand what pollution is and |

| |begin to have to tools to do their culminating project. |

| (b) Why this instructional strategy? |The water samples will be a good “catch” for the students because|

| |it is something they encounter in their everyday life. Then by |

| |giving students hard facts and pictures the students are hit with|

| |the seriousness of pollution. |

|4) What evidence of student learning/understanding will you |I will be collecting their pollution worksheet that will go over |

|collect? |the main ideas covered today. |

|5) Resources? |Pollution worksheets, pollution pictures, water samples |

|Day 12/ Day 13 |

|1) What will students do? |Today, the students will begin the culminating project, which |

| |will be for students to give a presentation addressing the |

| |increase of industry along the Seattle waterfront. They will |

| |split into groups where each group will pick a native marine |

| |animal or plant of the Puget Sound (they must first okay it with |

| |me) and explore how pollution might/would affect the |

| |animal/plant’s way of life. Each group is required to address |

| |which characteristics of life might be affected. The students’ |

| |must explain why homeostasis is no longer maintained for those |

| |processes affected and how the breakdown of processes is |

| |interrelated. The students are then required to explore what |

| |might be the state of their animal/plant over time in these |

| |conditions. This will all be done in an eight -minute power |

| |point presentation. |

|2) Learning objectives for the class? |Objectives 1.3, 1.4, 2.1, 2.2, Goal 5 |

|3) (a) Why introduce idea at this time? |This is a way for students to bring together all that they have |

| |learned in this unit. It allows them to make connections, and be|

| |able to utilize their knowledge. |

| (b) Why this instructional strategy? |So students can apply their knowledge for real world application,|

| |while testing and reinforcing their skills. |

|4) What evidence of student learning/understanding will you |I will just spend time walking around and informally assessing |

|collect? |where the students are at. |

|5) Resources? |Sample power point presentation |

|Day 14 (block period) |

|1) What will students do? |I will start off going through an example power point |

| |presentation. All of the students have already had experience |

| |with power point, but I will go ahead and review some basic |

| |techniques. Also, I will hand out a sheet for the students to |

| |follow in how to communicate their scientific procedures, |

| |investigations and explanations using this computer-based |

| |technology. We will go over exactly what the expectations are, |

| |and how to go about using technology for science presentations. |

| |Then the students will spend the rest of the period putting their|

| |presentation together. |

|2) Learning objectives for the class? |Objective 4.2 |

|3) (a) Why introduce idea at this time? |The students need to know this information to be able to present |

| |their final projects on |

| (b) Why this instructional strategy? |Modeling how students are expected to give their power point |

| |presentation, and then going over the expectations helps to set |

| |up the students for success in their culminating project. |

|4) What evidence of student learning/understanding will you |I will be informally assessing the students as they work. |

|collect? | |

|5) Resources? |Power point presentation example, technology expectations |

|Day 15/ into Day 16 |

|1) What will students do? |We will have presentation days where students will present their |

| |presentation results. This will be going over Phase 5 for |

| |inquiry. Students are required to ask one question of one of the|

| |presenters. Each audience member is expected to write down one |

| |thing they learned from each presentation and they will be |

| |writing these down in their journals to keep track. Also, |

| |students will fill out a peer review sheet of one thing they |

| |thought that each of the presenters did well as the “presenter”. |

| |I will compile these affirmations and hand them back to the |

| |students, with a note from me for both affirmation and |

| |improvement in how they presented. |

|2) Learning objectives for the class? |Objectives 3.3, 4.2 |

|3) (a) Why introduce idea at this time? |After practicing different presentations and learning all about |

| |the characteristics of life this allows students to really digest|

| |and recreate all that they have learned. Great way to get to the|

| |end of the unit. |

| (b) Why this instructional strategy? |This instructional strategy is to test them and stretch them on |

| |the goals and objectives that were set out for this unit. |

|4) What evidence of student learning/understanding will you |I will be assessing the peer reviews, the actual presentations, |

|collect? |the questions from the audience, and the answers from the |

| |presenters. |

|5) Resources? |Peer reviews |

|Day 16 (depending on time) |

|1) What will students do? |We will begin the day with students’ discussing one thing they |

| |learned from the presentations. Then as a class we will take all|

| |the information from all the presentations and compile it |

| |together along with a letter to the mayor explaining our |

| |findings. We will finish the day with the students discussing |

| |what they enjoyed and what frustrated them about the whole |

| |research process. |

|2) Learning objectives for the class? |Goal 5 |

|3) (a) Why introduce idea at this time? |This is a great way to wrap up the unit with the students |

| |compiling all of their hard work into a letter to the mayor. I |

| |also am gaining useful feedback for what needs to be tweaked on |

| |the culminating project. |

| (b) Why this instructional strategy? |By having the students compile their information to go to the |

| |mayor, they are no longer just doing science because their |

| |teacher wants them to. But, rather their work is being used for |

| |real world application. |

|4) What evidence of student learning/understanding will you |The compilation of all of the students’ work along with a letter |

|collect? |to they mayor. |

|5) Resources? |Hardcopies of everyone’s power point presentations |

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