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Animals and Their Environment Level: Primary --- Content: Science |
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In science class, Mr. Horchata’s second grade is
studying animals and the question, “How do animals adapt to their
environments?” After visiting a local pond to collect specimens and look for
evidence of adaptation to that environment, Mr. Horchata’s
class decided to create an online “zoo” using the Web tool Glogster.EDU. The
resulting “exhibits” would be transferred to a custom Web site at Webnode.com
that would be available to other students who were studying animal
adaptations. Mr. Horchata believed this to be an
excellent fit, not only for building the science content knowledge, but to
develop 21st Century Skills related to visual communication, self-directed
behavior (in particular, self-evaluation skills) and use of technology tools. To experience the kind
of work scientists might do that would require applying knowledge about
animal adaptations, they visited the Bell Museum of Natural History Web site.
There they worked in pairs using a “think, pair and share” collaboration
model to solve a simulated mystery that required them to use the physical
characteristics of escaped turtles to return them to the correct aquarium
environment. Students were asked to
select an animal that they found interesting. To prepare them to create their
Glogster-based exhibit, students were given
examples of “exhibits” Mr. Horchata had prepared
that were of varying quality. They used those examples to create the rubric
that would be used to evaluate their own exhibits. Using Glogster.EDU,
students created a poster of their animal, adding
sound buttons to physical features from a script that they had written to
describe the adaptation of each feature to the creature’s environment. Each
student then added a small image of their animal as a link to one of six
environment home posters: freshwater, marine, desert, forest, grassland, or
tundra. Future classes would add additional animals. A link to the zoo was
posted on the district Web site as a resource for other students. The
student’s were so excited about the finished product, they decided to post it
publicly and Glogster.EDU as well. Upon completing their poster, each student
completed a self-evaluation based on the rubric that the class had created at
the outset of the activity. Mr. Horchata used each student’s exhibit, the visual quality
of the animal poster, the quality of writing that supported the audio portion
of each poster and, using their own evaluations, their skills of
self-evaluation, to assess their understanding of adaptive characteristics of
animals. Tools used in this
scenario: Online Research
Resources: Creation and
publication tools: |