Lesson Plan 1: Plant and Animal Cells

I taught a plant and animal cells lesson to my fifth graders called CellQuest. It was a mixture of a webquest and a jigsaw activity.

*Due to the inherent nature of Internet resources on school web systems, I was unable to access the blog that I originally planned to use; luckily, I found this out in advance and was able to copy and paste my information into documents that I uploaded to each laptop- whew!*

This lesson focused on the common parts of the plant and animal cells and how they compare with each other. The students were already in groups of four at tables. Each group member was given 1 of 4 different pencils that indicated which cell they would be researching. Each student was given a booklet that had to be filled out by the end of the lesson. The booklet contained questions about plant cells and questions about animal cells.

Station 1 included individual laptops with document information.

Those students who were researching plant cells went to three stations: Station 1= laptops, station 2= microscopes, and station 3= books/magazines. The same went for those students researching animal cells. Each station was given about 5-7 minutes and when the timer went off, the students moved to the next station.

When all students had been to the three stations, they were instructed to move back to their group seats. Once they were back in their original groups, those students who had information on plant cells shared their information with the students who researched animal cells. Those students who researched animal cells then shared information with the plant cell students.
After about 20 minutes of this, most students had their entire booklet filled out and then they worked on comparing and contrasting plant vs. animal cells. At the end of the lesson, they filled out an exit question to show/tell me what they learned.

Students use mini-microscopes to look at plant cell slides.

The lesson went great and the students really responded well to using the laptops and interacting with each other. They realized how important it was to have more than one resource when searching for information.

I also went over procedures for group work and moving around the classroom before I let the students begin. I had them act out what group work should not look like and then act out what it should look like. I reminded them that they knew clearly what the difference was, what I expected, and how accountable they were for themselves and each other. This really helped with the management of the students.

If you'd like to use this lesson and/or any resources, feel free! :)
Here is a copy of the CellQuest Lesson Plan , the CellQuest Power Point, and Plant Cell/Animal Cell documents I used in place of the Blog that I had *hoped to use... :)

Exit Question for plant/animal cells.

Give one way plant and animal cells are different.

Science lp 2

The chemical change lesson went wonderfully! The students had to be prepared to go outside and handle chemical changes in a new environment, but they proved to be able to handle this activity and seemed to get a lot out of it!

During this activity, I practiced making the ice cream mixture inside, as a model, using different measurements, and working with fractions. Then, I held a group discussion that encouraged the students to communicate a time when they had experienced something where a chemical change had occurred. One example I was given was when a student's hair turned green 

I agreed that this was an obvious chemical change. After that, many of the students wanted to share stories about when their hair turned green from swimming too much. Another student actually commented that when his mother made him eggs, it turned from a liquid to a solid!

pouring a specific amount of vanilla extract

adding it to the mixuture

pouring another specific amount of vanilla extract

adding it to the mixture

Exploring the physical properties of ice cream mixture

Here is the Science lesson in Google docs, if you would like to view the lesson in a detailed format.

Autobiography

See- I was once a student too!!!

Here is the link to my Science Autobiography.

It includes my view on teaching Science, history with Science as a student, and how I plan to teach Science as a teacher.

My autobiography gives detail to why I believe in constructivism and guided discovery so much. 

Science Experiment

Here is the link to the Science Experiment that I demonstrated in class. 

GOGGLES ON!!!

Students were able to see evidence of a chemical change through gas, color change, and temperature. A zip lock baggie with calcium chloride and baking soda were carefully combined. When this happened, a temperature change was felt, the bag actually expanded, and gases could be viewed and observed using a sense of smell.

Scientific Literacy

Here is the Scientific Literacy project that I did. 
It gives examples of other people's definitions of Scientific Literacy and my own definition of Scientific Literacy. 
Enjoy! During this project, we interviewed others within specific age ranges to determine what their definition of Scientific Literacy was. These are the results.

These pictures demonstrate my ability to carry out important features of the Scientific Process: