Final Project:
What: I want to develop a web quest that explores human and environmental interaction. I am specifically looking at our carbon footprint and how that applies to the individual student.
Why/Who: I want to incorporate the content I am teaching to my fourth grade students. I want to increase student engagement with the content and promote integration of math and science content into a real life context. I also want to ‘push the envelope’ a bit within my school environment for providing meaningful, challenging, engaging material that meets academic expectations of the core content. I believe that my students are capable of critical thinking and I want to give them the opportunity to do so.
How:
1. Design a web quest that explores the issues and provides students with basic information.
2. Create a classroom blog where students can reflect on their experiences and observations about our school and their home environments in relationship to energy consumption.
Assessment:
1. Teacher observation of student comments on the classroom blog – particularly are they synthesizing the information they are learning?
2. Multiple open-ended responses to the web quest (i.e. letter to senator, principal, parent sharing what they have learned and encouraging change in existing practice; poster or visual to educate peers in the school community about issue; speech (perhaps using 4-H speech contest as a venue); or a student chosen, approved project.
Concerns:
1. This is an ambitious project for me as I am rather novice in implementing technology. I feel like to do this well, I might need an entire semester just to create a quality web quest. Is it too much to attempt? Can it be broken down into more manageable segments? Is there a better way to approach this?
2. How much of this project must be completed by the end of the semester? Due to pre-existing curriculum requirements this is going to be an enrichment project and will take some time for students to complete.
November 8, 2008 at 7:12 pm
This seems like a great project. I know a few teachers in my school who would be interested in doing something like this. You’ll have to let us know how your students respond to it. If it works well I’ll have to suggest to our fourth grade teachers to try a carbon footprint lesson/activity with their students.