The Great Solar Oven Cook-Off!

TIPC Ratings

Ideal – 7

Prior to this lesson, the students have been taught appropriate search techniques and have discussed methods to determine the accuracy and reliability of various online sources. In this lesson, the students use a collaborative Google Document to construct hypotheses that will guide the creation of initial research questions. The collaborative document also allows the student groups to assemble, organize, and synthesize the research of multiple individuals. The synthesis of this research will provide the basis for each group’s cooker design. This research addresses an authentic task. The creation of the hot dog cooker provides the students with a real life experience and helps the students understand first-hand the benefits and limitations of solar energy. At the end of the lesson, students use the Google Spreadsheet to display and interact with the data gathered from each group. This combination of data allows the students to come to overall conclusions, rather than conclusions specific to their group. Although research and information fluency score highly in this lesson, this strand could be further emphasized and strengthened in future implementations of the lesson. At the conclusion of the lesson, the teacher recognized that students would have benefited from a graphic organizer to further structure the students’ research and design (Research – Graphic Organizer). This document could be included in the collaborative Google Doc in the future.

Approaching – 5
Throughout the course of the lesson, the students use Google Docs to facilitate both communication and collaboration. In the original iteration of the lesson, the teacher requested that the students use GoogleDocs as an easy way to assemble, organize, and synthesize the research of multiple individuals in one common area. GoogleDocs was also suggested as a way to delegate tasks between group members. Each individual was responsible for bringing in various resources and materials, depending on the group’s final cooker design. Despite the relatively high score in this particular strand, communication and collaboration is not a focus of this particular lesson. Due to the relatively short time frame in which the assignment was completed, students did not communicate with each other outside of class by using the GoogleDoc. This strand could be strengthened in future iterations of this lesson if the lesson were adapted for a longer period of time. This would make outside of school collaboration and further delegation of group roles in the creation process more necessary and more effective. Additionally, students could choose their own method of communication and collaboration to complete the assignment.

Ideal – 6
In multiple places within the lesson, students apply digital tools to think critically, justify their decision making practices, solve open-ended tasks, and reflect on their learning. The students use their internet research to plan, design, build, and evaluate their hot-dog cooker. Additionally, the students use the spreadsheet of class results to generate and respond to questions regarding the effectiveness of solar energy. To further strengthen this strand, the students could be asked to create a digital model of their cooker before it is implemented and select the tool best suited for this particular task. This would lengthen the assignment, but could increase its overall effectiveness and lasting impression on the students.

Ideal – 6
The students use the collaborative research document to question, summarize, and make hypotheses and predictions, which are then reflected in each group’s final cooker design. This research leads to the creation of an authentic and meaningful product (the solar cooker), which gives the students a hand-on experience with solar energy. The students use the collaborative class results spreadsheet to analyze trends between the classes and make predictions based on the data. This data also allows the students to reflect on their own work in relation to their peers. Although creativity and innovation are a focus of this lesson and score highly, there is room for improvement within this strand. The ultimate goal of the lesson, heating a hog-dog to 100 degrees Farenheit, is confining enough that the students are limited in the strategic risks that they may take. Future iterations of this lesson could ask the students to use solar energy to complete a task of a larger scale. For example, the goal of the assignment could be to “find somewhere within the school where solar energy could be used and create a product that harnesses this energy and puts it towards a practical use.” This would take a much longer period of time, but could be a useful semester long or year-long activity.