As I have started to teach a unit about space that I have taught several times before, I would like to redesign the unit to include more real world problems that my students can relate to. The students need to be able to share differences in the planets, talk about revolution and rotation and the changes they cause, and the moon's relationship with Earth. One area that I have explored to help my students relate is to investigate which planet would be the next best place for us to create a civilization.
In my search for supplemental activities, I have found that the information online varies greatly when it comes to measurements and information due to the problem of making accurate measurements. This is an obstacle when sending students online to find information. I will have to search and direct students toward certain sites to help them get accurate information. For example, I have been using the NASA website due to the fact that it seems to be up-to-date with newest findings.
One question that I have that I will be working on is continuing to facilitate the project while ensuring that students are finding accurate information and recording it correctly. One area that may get in the way is the difference in measurement styles, such as miles and kilometers. During class we will have to discuss the differences and why the two types are used in the same measurement.
Well, I am off to bring more real-life problems to help my students understand an abstract subject of space and the vastness of what we are talking about. As we started talking about planets for the first time today, the students were asked which planet was the largest in the solar system and a student replied that Earth was the biggest. We have a lot to learn about space, so off on our adventure we go.
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I think that you have some wonderful ideas on how to teach about the planets. I remember when I Was in 5th grade and learning about the planets we were broken into groups and each had a planet to research, we then had a planet pageant sort of. We had three categories. It was Dress, which was when we had to dress up as our planet as best as possible, the second category was talent, and we had to do some talent, the third was an interview pursaue and we had to answer questions that we were suppose to research about our planet..it was a lot of fun. You could give mini-assessments like twice a week in order to ensure that your students aer finding accurate information or even make them turn in their findings everyday and make sure they are finding accurate information. Good luck!
ReplyDeleteWhat a fun idea, and clearly it made a difference since you remember the details of the project. I do check in with the groups often to check information and still it astounds me some days that wild facts make it into projects along the way.
ReplyDelete-Melissa