Grade 4: Endangered Animals and their Habitats

One of our grade 4 teachers, Greg Neil, is presenting next week at the GEOEC conference in Canmore Alberta.

Greg's presentation is going to focus on the Galileo Inquiry Rubric, and then use a Grade 4 project he designed on endangered animals as a case study of inquiry in action.

The purpose of the project was to have students understand the different regions in Alberta, and to explore the understanding of "land" by attempting to take on the perspective of an endangered animal with one of the regions.

Student worked through a variety of tasks, leading up to a final podcast, taking on the voice of an animal, talking about their habitat. Along the way students:

• explored the different regions, using this site as a resource
• viewed the Lorax as a hook into the concept of endangered species
• complied a list of animals within their region, and then color coded the animals based on the degree of "endangerment"
• had two experts speak to the class, one from the Cochrane Ecological Institute, and Leanne Allison, a local filmmaker.
• chose an endangered or threatened species to research
• wrote a report, with peer editing using track changes (WORD) along the way
• used Pages (Apple) to create a one-page endangered animal report
• created a final podcast from the perspective of their endangered animal

These steps, with resources, can be found in more detail by clicking here.

Here is the presentation created by Greg, given at the GEOEC conference:

Here is one of the grade 4 student podcasts:

Here is that same students, reflecting back on her work a year later:

Inquiry, Assessment and Technology in Phys Ed

One of our Physical Educadtion teachers (Tammy Berry) is delivering a presentation this weekend at the Annual Conference for the Health and Physical Education Council of Alberta.

Tammy is delivering a one-hour session on her grade 4-6 football unit, in which she strives to incorporate both inquiry-based learning and technology.

In the past, when Tammy taught this unit, she was often frustrated because playing traditional games of football with this age group (grades 4-6) often left out a sizable chunk of students, due to either athletic ability or interest in the sport. Tammy was looking for a way to teach the foundational skills of football in a way that would invite participation from all students, as well as allow for creativity and technology.

The unit she designed is built around 'football routines.' Over the course of a few weeks, students are introduced to a number of foundational skills (throwing a spiral, kicking, catching, running plays, etc) and are asked to build a one-minute routine that incorporates all the skills. Tammy introduces a rubric of the skills at the beginning of the unit, and throughout, students have the opportunity to self-assess their own skills, as well as performing their routines for their peers to receive feedback on how to improve the skills and routine.

Throughout the unit, Tammy finds that all students are now fully engaged in the sport. Students have the opportunity to build the skills in an environment that is both safe and creative for all students. As students are building and practice the routines, they are constantly receiving advice from teacher and peers.

At the end of the unit, after receiving feedback and improving their ideas, students perform and record their final routines. Students then upload their final routine to their digital portfolios, and are asked to self-assess their improvement over the course of the unit. Students can capture this self-assessment either in written form, or by creating a voice-over on top of their video file.

In this way, Tammy is attempting to bring technology into the P.E. class by mirroring the use of video recording in professional sports. Students are able to watch themselves performing the skills, and can point out areas for improvement. Through the entire unit, the self-identification and improvement of skills is the goal.

Here's one of the grade 6 student written self-reflections:

This year I learned a lot of things in football. What I learned was some techniques like run moves when my teammates yelled hut. In this video I did the buttonhook . I have improved on my punting the ball. I can punt the footballs farther and more accurate and can sort of get a spiral on it, but in this video the punt at the end did not have a spiral. I was a good teammate because I gave out suggestions for what to do in this video and told the rest on my teammates what they could improve on. My favourite part of the football was making a routine with a group and watching my video. I know that next year I need to improve on remembering to throw with my left foot forward.

Below are some of the materials used by Tammy during her presentation:

This is the presentation given by Tammy:

Inquiry and Technology in Physical Education

View more presentations from Calgary Science School.

This is the video of students working on their routines. You can see the involvement by all students in the class:

This is the video of one group performing their routine to receive feedback from their peers:

This is one of the final videos, with student voice-over:

Finally, here is Tammy's football unit plan, complete with the rubric for the football routines:

Grade 5: Science in the Wetlands

One of the luxuries we have at the Science School is being within walking distance of a protected wetlands area called the Weaselhead Natural Environment Park. Being so close allows our teachers and students to make us of the park for recreation, as well as scientific and environmental education.

One of our grade 5 teachers has planned a project for his students to study the quality of water in various places around the Weaselhead. The goals of the project are to:

• Have students experience the collection and analysis of data
• Understand the role of wetlands in cleaning our water supply
• Understand the impact that humans have on the quality of our water
• Understand and explain some of the properties that constitute Water Quality

This project is also our school's first attempt at using new science probes recently purchased by the school. We purchased a number of probes, as well as a Water Quality resource from Vernier. These probes can be plugged them directly into student laptops, allowing them to collect and analyze their own data.

The students will be gathering water samples and bringing them back to the school, where they will analyze the water using a variety of probes. Overall, students will be examining 6 different properties of water quality.

Temperature (taken at site by each group)
pH
Turbidity

Dissolved Oxygen

Alkalinity
Salinity

The steps for the project are:

1. Assign "expert groups" for the five properties (not temperature). In these groups students will become experts in a particular property of Water Quality (WI). In these groups students will:

• gather background research on specific water property (pH, turbidity, etc)
• build a short presentation/podcast and one-page handout to teach other students on their water property:

1. define and explain the property
2. what factors cause a change in this property?
3. what is the safe range of the property?
4. what impacts do changes in property have on the ecosystem/wildlife?
5. why this probe? What does this instrument show us?
6. What data does the probe provide us with?
7. short demonstration on how to collect data using the probe

2. The teacher will build a basic model wetland to explain basic elements of wetland. The teacher will also create a concoction of 'dirty water' which will e run through the model wetland. The student expert groups will test water before and after, using their particular WQ property. Student will then be asked to graph (bar graph) the results, comparing the properties of the water before and after the cleaning process.

3. Assign "Jigsaw" Groups. Jigsaw groups teach each group member about their property (ie: pH, Turbidity, etc) using their pre-made presentation and handout The rest of the Jigsaw group will peer assess the quality of instruction using an assessment rubric.

3. (Field Trip to the Weaselhead) Jigsaw groups will collect samples at their 5 pre-determined sites throughout the Weaselhead. (A, B, C, D, E) At their site, students will collect GPS UTM, Water Temperature and a large sample of water for specialized tests back at the school. (1-2L). Students will also gather observations and pictures form the location.

4. (In Lab) Each Expert group will gather together again to test their sample (Multiple Data X5, site Labeled) and analyze the data. Students in the expert groups should help each other to make sense of the data. Each student in each expert groups needs to be ready to go back to their jigsaw group and explain their findings.

5. (In Jigsaw Groups) Share data from their site with the rest of the students in thegroups. As a group, the students also complete the Water Quality Index (WQI) calculations, determining a final WQI number for their site. The WQI framework and calculations can be found in the "Water Quality with Vernier" publication.

6.In the Jigsaw groups, student build a short presentation to offer to the rest of the class. The presentation should contain:

• image location on Google Earth
• images taken from field trip
• overview and explanation of data findings
• key assumptions about data
• final WQI number
• questions that still remain about site

7. Share DATA with Grade 7 students doing an overall study of the health of the Weaselhead Ecological Environment

Possible other ideas:
Give five data charts (without final calculations) to all students and have them rank order the sites in order of water quality.

Summative Assessment: Students should be able to identify the differences between the different water samples, and explain what the differences in numbers mean for the quality of the water.

As always, we welcome feedback and suggestions on this preliminary project outline. Please use the comment feature below to respond.

Update:

Here's a short video of students working through the various parts of the project:

(1) researching and teaching other students in the classroom about their assigned water quality indicatory

(2) testing actual water samples from the Weaselhead Nature Area

(3) using the WQI index graphs to compare the 5 water samples