Submitted by: Crissy Rhyne
School: Shady Grove ES
Summary
This lesson will combine a Children’s Engineering design challenge with a technology based research and share session. The students will learn about plants, their parts, and what they need to grow, etc. We will use the Journey North website (www.learner.org/jnorth) and Discovery Science to research and begin our understanding of plants. The Journey North tulip project will be taught by a PTA outdoor classroom volunteer. Students will track growth of the red emperor tupos as the seasons change from winter to spring. They will explore the factore that influence plant growth, and the full array of seasonal changes that take place in the springtime. Students will participate in the “Planting a Rainbow” design challenge. They will brainstorm ideas about building a freestanding plant. Students choose their small groups, and after building their plant, take pictures of their design. Each group will select one picture to include in a VoiceThread presentation. Students and their parents will comment on the VoiceThread.
TIPC Ratings
Target: Because they are so young, students are unable to research independently. The teacher designed challenges that promoted synthesis of resources. Students were introduced to a variety of written materials that showed plants, their parts, and their needs. I also showed them digital resources such as the Journey North website and videos from Discovery Science. Then the students needed to apply this knowledge to their design challenge.
Target: Students created an Avatar that described them, used digital cameras to capture their final project, and helped to produce a VoiceThread that was shared with their community outside of school. Students also chose their collaborative pairs; selected appropriate materials needed to carry out the challenge, and created original works as a team. Students communicated digitally using the VoiceThread to explain their project and give positive comments and ask questions to their peers. Parents and other community members were able to view the VoiceThread and comment as well.
Approaching: Students were able to create a final product that had multiple solutions to an authentic task, and used a variety of materials. Students had to reflect on their collaborative efforts, their final product, and used technology to capture and share their results.
Approaching: In this lesson students applied innovative thinking in the way they designed their plant to be free standing and taller than the given measurement. Students created meaningful, original works within the assignment paramaters.Students created innovative plant structures using a variety of materials. Students were able to digitally explain their final product, their thought process, and problems they encountered.
Student Artifact
