Wk+02+-+Assignment+B

ssignment B -Week 2 __Assignment B__ Attached are two possible assignments to for week 2. In assignment 1, students read about the importance of teaching the nature and process of science to their students at [|www.understandingscience.com]. Then students choose an activity from the list below and answer reflection questions to think about how the lesson is effective in teaching about science and sustainability. Assignment 2 includes some of the same questions in a format similar to week 1. [|Week2_Assignment B #1.docx] [|Week2_Assignment B#2.docx]

__Section 1: Science and Scientific Discovery__ Grade Level: K-2 Subject Area: Science In this activity, students can learn about the process of science through discovery using their senses. Students find pairs of matching sounds by shaking lidded containers and listening to the sounds that are generated. Students learn that science includes observations using their senses of regularity and patterns in the world. < [] >
 * 1. Can you Match them? **

Grade Level: K-2 Subject Area: Science Students feel inside a bag and use only their sense of touch to describe and identify one of the objects that is inside the bag. This activity incorporates learning about the natural world using our senses and extensions of our senses. It teaches students that observations about the world are essential for understanding their daily lives. Two versions: a. [] b. [|http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/lessons/myst.bag.html]
 * 2. Can you Tell by Touch? / What's in the Bags? **

Grade Level: K-2 Subject Area: Science Using the sense of sight, students discover things about their environment. Students take a walk outside, recording specific observations about the natural world. This activity emphasizes scientific discovering using real world things, allowing student to observe things about their environment they would not have ordinarily. It demonstrates to students how scientists ask questions about things they observe, trying to discover regularity and reproducibility in the world around them. < [] >
 * 3. Oh Say, What can you see? **

Grade Level: 3-5 Subject Area: Science This lesson teaches students about the role of scientists in discovering things about the environment. It teaches that scientists work to address questions based on observations and discover rules that the natural world obeys. In this activity, students will act as scientists, by conducting an experiment to see whether differences in salinity (the environment) have an effect on the hatching rate and survival of brine shrimp. < [] >
 * 4. Environmental Difference **

Grade Level: 6-8 Subject Area: Science, Literature, Writing In this 3 part activity, students will explore the processes that scientists go through when observing and discovering new things. After reading a sample research proposal on Amazon Leafcutter Ants, students will develop their own mini- proposal on newts or peacocks. The paper will include an introduction, hypothesis, predictions, and the research procedure. Students will then share their research and ideas with their classmates, as scientists do with their colleagues. [[ [] >]]
 * 5. Ancient Farmers of the Amazon **

Grade Level: 6-8 Subject Area: Science, Technology, History This online activity for 6th-8th graders walks students through the process of asking scientific questions and data interpretation. It discusses how scientists fin observable patterns in relation to the Latitudinal Diversity Gradient, biodiversity, evolutionary history, and the human population. Students practice data interpretation by answering interactive questions. [] >
 * 6.Visualizing life on earth: data interpretation in Evolution **

Grade Level: 6-8 Subject Area: Science This online activity describes science to students in an easy to understand manner. It allows students to distinguish between science and non-science. It talks about the rules that science includes and the changes made in science as it corrects itself, as well as other principles of science and scientific discovery. [] >
 * 7. Nature of Science - online activity **

Grade Level: 3-5 Subject Area: Science, Literature, Writing This activity encourages students to make observations, examine data, and form hypotheses. Students observe different kinds of tracks, developing hypotheses and stories about what is happening in the pictures. They receive more information about the tracks as the activity progresses and can make changes to their hypotheses. The lesson introduces the process that scientists go through when making observations and predictions about the world- changes are made to ideas as more information in discovered (solar system example). These are concrete skills that easily transfer to other science activities. [] >
 * 8 . Tennis Shoe Detectives **

Grade Level: 6-8 Subject Area: Science, History In this activity, students are introduced to a science flow chart that includes exploration and discovery, testing ideas, benefits and outcomes, and community analysis and feedback. Students read a story about Walter Alvarez and his scientific studies of craters and evolutionary history. Students observe how Alvarez’s story includes components of the science flow chart. This activity teaches students that science is a complicated, non-linear process with many variables. [] [|alvarez_hs.pdf] [|simple_flow_handout.pdf] [|flowchart_k2.pdf]
 * 9. Introducing the Science Flow Chart **

Grade Level: 3-5, 6-8 Subject Area: Science In this activity students learn about the nature of science by experimenting with small boxes containing a steel ball. Students attempt to diagram the interior of the box, make testable hypotheses, and discuss findings with other students. The lesson teaches students that there is uncertainty in science, that uncertainty can be reduced through collaboration, and that explanations can seem less certain when based on indirect information. 3 versions: a. [] [|ob-scertainerreg_better_black_.v2.doc] [|box_patterns.doc] [|student_activity_sheet.v2.doc] b. [|http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/lessons/mys.box.h] [|tml] [|myst.bag.pdf] c. []
 * 10. What's Inside? An activity on experiment, hypotheses, and inference **

Grade Level: 3-5, 6-8 Subject Area: Science Similar to the idea of the mystery box lesson, students attempt to discover the construction of the interior of a sealed tube using ropes on the outside. This lesson is a good introduction to the nature of scientific inquiry. Collaboration with classmates brings a better understanding of the question presented. [|mhs.thinktube.pdf]
 * 11. Mystery Tubes **
 * [] **

Grade Level: 6-8 Subject Area: Science In this activity students are introduced to the idea that science is uncertain and that scientists make multiple models and metaphors to explain their observations of the world. Students will use observation, predication, hypothesis development, model-building, and collaborative learning to answer a puzzling question. (Water is poured into a mystery box come out in a larger volume then what was put in. Why?) Grade Level: 6-8 Subject Area: Science In this activity students will learn about how scientists observe, explore, share ideas, revise ideas, and sometimes disagree about evidence and observations in the natural world. They will do this by using their senses to investigate three different liquids. In this three part lesson students will observe the liquids learning about density, viscosity, how liquids behave when mixed, and how objects travel through liquids. Part 1: [] Part 2: Exploring how liquids behave- [] Part 3: Traveling through different liquids- []
 * 12.The Great Volume Exchanger…or the Magic Matter Maker **
 * [|http://www.indiana.edu/~ensiweb/lessons/grt.vol.html] **
 * 13. Exploring liquids **

Grade Level: 3-5 Subject Area: Science This modified version of a typical weathering and erosion stations activity emphasizes how scientists use initial observations to inform and then test a hypothesis. Students have the opportunity to create models of how chemical weathering and mechanical weathering work in the natural world. They will also be able to explain how scientists use observations and experiments to inspire more discoveries. [] >
 * 14. Weathering and erosion **

Grade Level: K-2, 3-5 Subject Area: Science This simple, hand-on activity gives students the opportunity to learn about developing rules and categories for objects based on scientific principles. Students will explore objects that sink and float in water. They will develop hypotheses for each trial and group objects with common characteristics. [] [|sinkit_actsheet.pdf]
 * 15. Sink IT **

Grade Level: 6-8 Subject Area: Science Students will conduct an experiment to determine the rate at which sand and water heats up and cools down on the Earth’s surface. They will learn specifically about the process of science, including observations and ideas taken from the natural world, testing these ideas to discover regularity, and hypothesizing about future outcomes. []
 * 16. Heating and cooling of the Earth's surface **

Grade Level: 6-8 Subject Area: Math, Social Studies This online activity simulates the relationship between population growth, energy consumption, and fish decimation in a community. It is the students’ task to try to preserve the fish resource for 1000 years, in relation to the population growth and energy use.
 * __Section 2: Population and Reproduction__ **
 * 17. Population Growth Stimulator **
 * [] **

Grade Level: 6-8 Subject Area: Math, Social Studies In this activity students will learn about population factors and growth rate of different countries around the world. Working as teams, they will calculate how long it takes a country’s population to double in size. *handouts [|3108_worldbal.pdf]
 * 18. The World in Balance **
 * [[[] ]] **

Grade Level: K-2 Subject Area: Social Studies, Math Students will learn about what a population map is. Then, using familiar places in their town or neighborhood (homes, park, school, stores, etc) they will construct a population map using pasta. They can then discuss why some areas are more crowded than others and how this translates to the world as a whole. <[]>
 * 19. Pasta Population Map **