Submitted by: Julia Brown
School: J.R. Tucker High School
Summary
In this lesson, students will click on the Today Show link and explore countries that have been featured on the show. After students choose a country, then they will use the rubric to determine what their presentation should include. Each student will then use the internet to research plants, animals, and climate from another country and create a presentation to share with their classmates. Students may use any appropriate website to gather their information. Students can use any program on their computer to create a presentation (movie, Powerpoint, OneNote, Microsoft Publisher). They will give oral presentations where the observing students will then guess Where in the World the student was using Activ Engage virtual clickers. This lesson was created for the Biology Part 1 class (non-SOL) but can be used with any biology class.
TIPC Ratings
APPROACHING – Research and Information Fluency:
The teacher modeled this lesson by having students explore the Today Show website and the travels of Matt Lauer. Then the self-contained Exceptional Education students researched plants, animals, and the climate of a certain country within a particular biome. They choose and evaluated appropriate websites to gather information and apply this knowledge to create their presentation. They also had to choose their own program to create a presentation (movie, Powerpoint, OneNote, Microsoft Publisher).
DEVELOPING – Communication and Collaboration:
Students worked independently on researching their project and creating their presentations. Additionally, they gave oral presentations to their classmates. And, the entire class was engaged in trying to guess the biome being presented using the Activ Engage program.
DEVELOPING – Critical Thinking and Problem Solving:
Students researched specific questions about their country; such as temperature, food webs, time zones, plants, animals, etc. During the class presentation, the audience had to synthesize their newly acquired knowledge of biomes to guess the biome being presented.
DEVELOPING – Creativity and Innovation:
Students modeled their presentation after the Today’s Show “Where in the World is….?”. They chose the format of the presentation (Powerpoint, Movie Maker, OneNote, Publisher) and were creative in their description of their country. Students made connections between what they have learned about biomes and applied it to a country they had researched. They also made predictions based on what they had learned in order to guess the biome for each student presenter.
Student Artifact
