Study Island



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|Title: My Island Discovery |Author: Todd B. |State: Michigan |

|Grade Span: K-2 |Subject: Language Arts, Mathematics, Science, | |

| |Social Studies, Biology, History, Geography | |

|Assignment Type: Individual, Small group, Whole group |

|Recommended Time Frame: 7-8 weeks (1 class period per week) |

Summary of Project:

This Project Based Learning (PBL) Activity combines content standards from technology, social studies, science, math and English language arts. The primary goal of this cross-curricular PBL is to engage the students. To achieve this goal, the students will use computers to create and format a Microsoft Word document that incorporates pictures, paragraphs, and graphs to tell a story about a fictional island that they design in Microsoft Paint.

Materials and Resources Needed:

|Whole class |Per Group |Per Student |

|Videos or text that describes how islands are| |Renaissance Responders or printouts for |

|created | |students to complete |

|Videos or text that describes how food webs | | |

|work | | |

|Microsoft Paint or similar drawing tool | | |

|Microsoft Word or similar word processor | | |

|Microsoft Excel or similar spreadsheet/graph | | |

|making tool | | |

|LCD projector or visual display device | | |

| or other testing method to | | |

|evaluate topic mastery | | |

|Color Printer | | |

Key Vocabulary

|Ecosystem |Prey |Climate |

|Habitat |Carnivore |Topographical map |

|Food web |Herbivore |Continent |

|Predator |Omnivore |Legend |

|Compass rose |Estimate |Spreadsheet |

|Map key |Graph |Network drive |

|Bit-map-image |Document |Edit |

|Conference |Revision |Paragraph |

|Topic |Rubric | |

Engaging Questions:

1. What do animals and plants need to survive?

2. How does the water cycle work?

3. What is a habitat?

4. How do food webs work?

5. Name some predators. Name some prey.

6. What is a carnivore, herbivore, and omnivore?

7. How does geography affect animals?

Implementing the Activity

I do this project over the course of seven to eight 45-minute class periods. The majority of the material is presented and discussed in their homeroom classrooms. When they come to computers once a week, I review those elements in the core standards that relate to this project. A combination of short 5-10 minute videos about islands, ecosystems, and formatting techniques help to differentiate instruction. Whole group, mini-groups, partners, and individual work differ depending on the class and their ability to handle the tasks for the period, so I do not specifically prescribe any set way to teach each part. I do this PBL towards the end of the year, so that I can more accurately gage which classes will benefit from what mode of instruction at that particular time.

Week 1: Island formation introduction, topographical map discussion with examples, instructions on using colors and tools in Microsoft Paint to create geographical features, and directions on how to save to My Computer. PBL-a bit-map image of an island saved

Week 2: Viewing video or information about animals, habitats, ecosystems, opening a Word document, inserting ClipArt into a document and formatting how it appears in relation to the text, looking at globes, maps, and/or Google Earth to decide where our islands are located, beginning a paragraph describing the island and its location, looking at a rubric for our finished project, and saving to My Computer. PBL- a Word document saved and formatted correctly with a title, pictures, and paragraph started

Week 3: Formatting paragraph and fonts, inserting a picture into Microsoft Word, discussing elements of a good paragraph, typing, reviewing a rubric for our finished project, and saving to a network drive (L:) and to My Computer. PBL- a Word document saved in two locations and formatted correctly with a title, pictures, and paragraph finished

Week 4: Discussions and examples of correct formatting and writing, self-editing, and peer review of the document, a chance to explore other ideas and islands, inserting a graph, using Microsoft Excel, adding and estimating to get 100 animals on their graph, and reviewing a rubric for our finished project. PBL- a Word document saved in two locations and formatted correctly with a title, pictures, paragraph edited, and a graph with 100 animals

Week 5: Check for 100 animals and add 50 animals to another peer’s island (Island exploring), talk about population growth and reasons why animals thrive or perish, finish second paragraph about the animals on the island, review a rubric for our finished project, and help students that are behind. PBL- a Word document saved in two locations and formatted correctly with a title, pictures, 2nd paragraph started, and a graph with 150 animals

Week 6: Finishing 2nd paragraph about animals, watching videos on the water cycle, starting third paragraph describing the island and climate, add 50 more animals to graph, peer editing for students that finish early, review rubrics, and go over any special information/topics that are presenting problems for students in each class. (This is a chance to differentiate the lesson, in the example at the end of this synopsis, the classroom teacher told me that students in this class had problems with identifying nouns and verbs in their sentences, so we used the highlighting tool to make sure we had the right parts of speech). PBL- a Word document saved in two locations and formatted correctly with a title, pictures, 3 paragraphs, and a graph with 200 animals

Week 7: Take a Custom Material Test over food webs, types of animals, map skills, reading a graph, English language arts aspects of the project, and technology objectives used with clickers. Pass out My Island Discovery Printed out to students other than the authors and play a game round-robin describing the island on the sheet in front of them by reading one sentence and guessing whose island they have until everyone guesses. Students fill out a rubric and conference with other students that have identified their islands at their seats.

Week 8: Sometimes classes are slower or a teachable moment emerges during instruction. It is important to schedule an extra week for this.

End Result

Students created their own world, they have ownership of the mistakes they make and the opportunity to learn from and correct those mistake. This PBL Activity lets them experience mixed modes of instruction, multiple learning styles, technology integration, and cross-curricular research and implementation. I love discussing with students how everything is interrelated. My questions and the questions they ask each other, force them to examine the choices that they made on their islands while learning about the world around us.

Rubric

| |1 |2 |3 |4 |

|Technology Component |There are too many problems |Numerous problems (4-7) with|Minor problems (1-3) with |Formatting, size, alignment,|

| |with formatting, size, |formatting, size, alignment,|formatting, size, alignment,|fonts, pictures, and chart |

| |alignment, fonts, pictures, |fonts, pictures, and chart |fonts, pictures, and chart |are excellent |

| |and chart to resemble the | | | |

| |example from last year | | | |

|Readability and Aesthetics |There are too many grammar, |Major problems (4-7) with |Minor problems (1-3) with |Grammar, punctuation, |

| |punctuation, spelling, and |grammar, punctuation, |grammar, punctuation, |spelling, and flow are |

| |flow errors to understand |spelling, and flow; Missing |spelling, and flow; Not |excellent, the vocabulary is|

| |what the topics of the |pictures, paragraphs, or |missing any parts |rich with very little |

| |paragraphs are |chart | |repetition; All parts |

| | | | |visually pleasing |

|Science, Social Studies, and|There are too many errors of|Major problems (4-7) with |Minor problems (1-3) with |Information is accurate; |

|Math Accuracy |facts to be a life- like |numbers, ecosystems, |numbers, ecosystems, |island ecosystem makes sense|

| |island; geography is |geography, or animals; |geography, or animals; |and probably exists on |

| |unnatural. |almost unrealistic, but with|realistic, but with errors |Earth; geography follows |

| | |correctable errors | |real life examples |

Additional Notes

Example products

Flint Island

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Welcome to Flint Island. Flint Island is next to the continent of North American in the Pacific Ocean. It is by the country of Canada.

There are lots of animals on this island. Wolves, bears, deer, and rabbits live together on this island. The wolves roam the grasslands and forests hunting deer and rabbits. Bears live in the hills and eat berries, grubs, and any meat they can get their paws on. Deer live in the forests and grasslands with the rabbits. They both eat plants.

There are three in-active volcanoes on the island. There are pine tree, oak, and maple forests on Big Beard Island. The lakes and streams on the island are full of salmon and trout. Two active volcanoes are in the ocean. The climate on the island is pacific northwestern.

Noun Verb

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