Final+Project

=Final Project=

Unit Description:
After finishing this unit, the students will be able to answer the big question of "How do objects move in space?" The studetns will also learn about stars; inner and outer planets; asteroids, meteors, comets, and moons; and how Earth moves.

• What learning goals will I present to students?
===• How will I display these goals so that they are clearly evident throughout the unit?=== At the beginning of each lesson in the chapter, there is a spot at the top where is directly states what the goal for each lesson is. I will read it through with them and discuss it with them. ===• How will I provide guidance for students as they generate their own learning goals?=== Prior to each lesson, I will ask the students to write what else would they like to learn about. ===• How will student display these goals so they they are evident throughout the unit?=== By answering questions throughout and at the end of each lesson.
 * Lesson 1: Describe how the Earth rotates and revolves and why the sun, moon and stars appear to move across the sky
 * Lesson 2: Describe the physical characteristics of the sun and why Polaris is important
 * Lesson 3:Identify the outer and inner planets and Earths position in the solar system
 * Lesson 4: Identify and describe the common characteristics of Jupiter, Saturn, Unranus, and Neptune
 * Lesson 5:Understand the differences between moons, asteroids, comets, meteorids, meteors, amd meteorites

During a Unit - Planning for Introducing Knowledge
===• Which activities will I use to help students identify what they already know about new knowledge?=== We will use a circle map at the beginning of each lesson to display what the already know about the topic. ===• What activities will I use to help provide students with advanced organizers for new knowledge?=== Throughout the chapter/unit the focus is on comparing and contrasting, so the double bubble map will be used quite frequently. There are also other areas that lend for other Thinking Maps to be used either by me or to have the students create theri own. ===• What activities will I use to help students make inferences about new knowledge?=== Using the Explore It! activites at the beginning of each lesson. This section is a lab that covers a pices of the lesson. It asks a question at the beginning, has them complete an activity and then answer questions about their results. The questions always has an inference queston. There are aslo inferring questions throughout the lesson.

• What will I do to help students take notes about the new knowledge?
For an activity the students will be required to complete a planet reoprt. For this report, questions will be provided to the students for them to research. Their job will be to make notes and summarized the information that they find. Also throughout the chapter students will be required to write down the important words and their definitions. They will first look up the definitions and then put them into their own words. ===• What will I do to help students represent the new knowledge in nonlinguistic ways?=== The students will make models of a spiral galaxy, a model of how light shines on Earth as it moves, and use a model to determine that a meteroid vaporizes and disintegrates when it falls through Earth's atmosphere. They will also draw visual representations of their definitions.

• How will I use cooperative learning?
The students will work in pairs or in groups to complete the Explore It! activites. ===• What will I do to help students identify similarities and differences relative to the new knowledge?=== The focus of this chapter/unit is to compare and contrast various things. One example is in the first lesson they have them use a graphic organizer (venn diagram in this case, but I had them use a double bubble instead) to compare and contrast the different ways that people though about Earth and what we now know.

During a Unit - Planning for Students to Review, Apply, and Practice Knowledge
===• How will I use homework to help students practice the knowledge that has been presented to them?=== Questions can/will be sent home for them to complete. ===• How will I use homework to help students apply the knowledge they are learning?=== I will send home the end of the lesson review after each lesson. ===• What activities will I use to help students generate and test hypotheses about the knowledge they are learning?=== Teacher will pose questions that require a hypothesis and come up with answers. My class this year is very good at this on their own. they will often ask a hypothetical question during class and then I ask other students come up with the answers. ===• What will I do to help students review and revise the nonlinguistic representations they have made for the knowledge they are learning?=== DIscussion of the models that are to be made will be modeled and discussed. The teacher will also discuss with the students their models. Possible options for the planet reoprt will be reviewed and discussed. Reubrics will be passed out for students to evaluate their own work before turning it in.

During a Unit - Planning for Monitoring Student Progress Toward Learning Goals
===• How will I provide students with systematic feedback on their progress toward learning goals?=== Grades will be given back to the students in a timely fashion for all assignments. ===• How will I involve students in the feedback process relative to learning goals?=== I will provide students with a formative assessment after each lesson. One of my favorites to use with this group is prompting them with a specific concept or principle and using thumbs up (I understand), thumbs down( I still don't get it), or thumbs in the middle(so-so with) to show me what their understanding is. Another one that will be used is index card summaries/questions. ===• How will I celebrate and recognize student progress throughout the unit?=== The various models will be posted around the room. Pictures will be taken of their work and displayed. The effort put forth will be vrebally recognized by the teacher. Students will present their work to the class. There will be choices as to how they will complete their models.

Planning for the End of a Unit
===• How will I provide a summary evaluation to students for each of the learning goals?=== THe students will write what they already know about the goal for each lesson on one side of an index card before we start the lesson. Upon completion of each lesson the students will write what they now know and understand for each lesson goal. The end of the lesson worksheets will be graded and returned to students.

• How will I solicit students' self-evaluations for each learning goal?
Using the index cards after each lesson, the students will first discuss with a peer what they wrote on the card. The students will also be asked to come up to the teacher and dicuss their card. The teacher can then elicit deeper self-evaluation answers. ===• How will I reconcile differences between my evaluation of a student's progress and the self-evaluation?=== I will recognize the students efforts. I will use what I learn from those evaluations to tweak the unit for the following year. Some of the difficulties that are encountered can be addressed and changed for the next unit.

Brief Lesson Description
After reading the lessons on the planets, the students choose a planet to research. The students will have a list of questions to look up and find the answers to. They will then categorize their information in a tree map to help them to organize thier information for the paper. The spcecific categories that there will be on the tree map are basic facts, orbit, what it it like on the planet, when it was discovered and by whom, and other. The students will also need to make a visual aid for a final presentation to the class.

Content Standard/NETs-S Standard
(For ELA and math in the classroom I follow the E-GLCEs, but for science and social studies I tend to follow subject matter of the the GLCEs)

E.ST.M.1 Solar System- The sun is the central and largest body in our solar system. **Earth is the third planet from the sun in a system that includes other planets and their moons,** as well as smaller objects, such as asteroids and comets. And ELA Content Standard (E-GLCE) will be achieved in writing the report

Instructional Strategies Included
Defining objectives nonlingusitic representation Advanced organizers Homework

=Technology Resources Needed (hardware & software)= Computer power point Microsoft word Glogster (for my more technology savy students)

Procedure
The students will draw a name of a planet in our solar system. Four days will be spent in the computer lab researching and finding answers to the questions posed by the teacher for their planet. They will then take it home for homework to complete the questions. The following week and a half will be spend organizing their information into a tree map and then writing it into a paper. Each branch of the tree map represents a paragraph in their paper. This part will require a lot of teacher support. Once their paper is complete they will need to decide on what type of visual aid they will make to go with their presentation. They will have the choice of a poster, power point, glogster, or a 3D model. Time will be provided in class for them to work on their visual aid (about 2 days) then it will be homework. Before they present, each student will fill out a rubric evaluating their own paper. Then they will present to the class and be evaluated by the teacher.

[|Planet Tree Map]

Assessment Method
Teacher created rubric.