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Nutrition and the Environment Level: Middle grades Content: Science |
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Ms. Trần is a middle grades teacher who is designing a unit on nutrition and the environment. As part of the standards, students are expected to understand how the choices that people make about the foods they consume impact their health and the environment. To address this standard as well as the 21st Century Skills of collaboration and communication, Ms. Trần plans a unit for her 14-year-old students. Ms. Trần plans a jigsaw activity. This means that each student will learn a topic in depth as part of a research group. Then students will be moved to a different group in which each member is an “expert” on a different topic and teaches the new group members about his or her topic in order to complete a group project. The class of 21 students is divided into 3 groups of 7 students with each group researching one of three questions. (1) What are the effects of food choices on nutrition? (2) What are the effects of food choices on health (e.g., obesity, colon cancer, high blood pressure)? (3) What are the effects of food choices on the environment (e.g., packaging and food production contributing to pollution and habitat destruction)? Prior to starting the research, the students get into smaller groups and create a causal map using the Intel Seeing Reason tool, where they show what they already know about this subject. Being that this is a very complicated topic and Ms. Trần has located many resources in advance. She stores these resources on a Moodle page where she also documents the assignment and the due dates for each assignment in the unit. She also makes sure students return to their causal map to update it periodically. Student teams can also use Moodle as a file storage area where they can upload their findings for the teacher to review and provide feedback as they are working. Each group submits a plan describing how they will research their question and a timeline for accomplishing their plan. Students will use the Internet or email participating experts including a nutritionist, a nurse, and a food-manufacturing expert whose participation has been pre-arranged by the teacher. The teacher meets with each group initially to review and approve their plan and timeline and then daily during the unit to check on their progress and provide feedback. She also provides feedback on the documents they have posted on Moodle and she reviews their causal maps to see how their thought process has changed over time due to their research. After the initial research phase is complete, the groups are reconfigured to form 7 groups composed of one student from each of the three research groups. Each of these 7 groups is asked to design a new menu for the school cafeteria that is nutritious, healthy, and has a minimal negative effect on the environment. In addition to presenting nutritional information for each menu, the groups must also present cost information. The students will market their menus to three different audiences: the panel of experts, the school administration, and the student body. Each group uses PowerPoint to present to the panel of experts in a video conference using Skype and the cameras built into their laptops. They present to the school administration (principal, cafeteria manager) face-to-face. They recruit support from the student body through a variety of tools including twitter, websites, and the school’s social networking site. The experts and school administrators assess the students’ on the quality of their presentations and their arguments using a rubric provided by the teacher, who created it using the Intel Assessing Projects tool. They also provide verbal feedback to the students giving them ideas on improving their sales techniques. To get feedback from the student body, Ms. Trần creates a survey and posts the link to the survey on the school’s website. At the end of the unit, Ms. Trần uses the feedback from all the outside sources and also assesses the presentations herself using the rubric. In addition, she provides the students feedback on their collaboration, time management, and communication skills. Resources used in this scenario: Daily and Professional Practice: Moodle http://moodle.org/ Assessment: Intel Assessing Projects tool: http://educate.intel.com/en/AssessingProjects
Creation and Publication: Impress (Open office), PowerPoint (Microsoft Office), http://prezi.com/ eCommunication: Skype http://www.skype.com/ Twitter www.twitter.com Data Collection: Poll Everywhere http://www.polleverywhere.com/ , Zoomerang http://www.zoomerang.com/ Reasoning: Intel Seeing Reason tool http://educate.intel.com/en/ThinkingTools/SeeingReason |