I was briefly exposed to the 5E's four years ago in an extensive summer professional development course in science content/pedagogy at one of the state colleges in NJ. I have not used it since this weekend. It is great for the unit/lesson or investigation that will encompass several science periods lasting a couple of weeks. There was some similarity to how I have to write my lesson plans now. It includes everything from activating prior knowledge, posing thought provoking questions, engaging students in effective lessons, connecting them to real-life lessons and situations and using types of assessments to evaluate student progress.
The lesson that I purposely chose was a lesson that I taught several years ago that integrates engineering and science. The lesson shows how an environmental engineer solves a problem and designs a water filtration system to clean contaminated water. From there the students are placed into "design teams", and experiment on items that filter water the best. They then proceed to use the "engineering design process," to draw, design and implement their own water filter, then have an opportunity to improve their design. A culminating activity is that each design team presents and communicates their findings to the class using a presentation software like PowerPoint.
What was most time consuming in this application is the multiple standards that I researched for this lesson.
From a logistical and practical point of view, and to cover all of the 5E's effectively this unit lesson will need several class periods to accomplish which approximately lasts a couple of weeks.
This sounds like a great lesson. In the last nine weeks of school, I focus on engineering. One of the units I cover is envirnomental engineering. My students build solar cars and build water filtration systems.
ReplyDeleteHollie,
ReplyDeleteThe students will have a blast with this and perform most of the work. Plenty of room for facilitating. The lesson encourages the groups to take risks. They experience the successes and failures that engineers and scientists do. It is a great end of the year project when standardized testing is finished.
I do a similar project on rocketry that is provided by NASA. It really is great because it provokes true scientific thinking while also including other subject contents as well. And of course including real life scenarios is so important in getting kids truly inspired.
ReplyDelete~Charity
Mark, A very intriguing blog site! I think your students will have a great time with the lesson about icebergs. I believe that you could adapt the activity to just about any grade level.
ReplyDeleteMarguerite
Marguerite,
ReplyDeleteThank you for the constructive comments! To be honest, I have been thinking how to adjust this lesson to fit upper elementary students, grade 4 for example. I have already inquired with my fellow colleagues.