Bridge12

Extensions: Connect Earth Science with Math and Art. Also includes Natural Sciences. Adaptations: Gifted students can record daily weather observations in a notebook and create a graph or tally chart of the different types of weather that they examined. ESL & Special Ed students can draw daily weather patterns in notebook or create pictograph charts of weather with tally marks to indicate frequency. 

Extensions: Connect Life Science with Art (wintertime craft) and Natural Science Adaptations: ESL & Special Ed students can draw birds that are at the feeder the most.  Gifted students can draw the different beaks: "tweezer beaked", "clothespin beaked"/wide billed birds and explain which kind of beaks are best suited for this kind of feeding.

Sticky Note: This could also be added to a science lesson where students have been creating vehicles and also have a class vehicle and class ramp that students could test. That way they could compare their own vehicles with the class vehicle and same with the class ramp (kind of like a control subjects). It could also be added to math lessons because of the measuring involved in each part of the activity.

Sticky Note: This activity could be differentiated so that each group was working with a different planet in the solar system so that when the exhibits were displayed the class would see the whole solar system.

Sticky Note: This could be used for graphing if students had to test their structures multiple times, create a graph and find the average. Then could create a class graph of each group's averages. Could also be manipulated for younger students by changing the amount of materials.

Sticky Note: This would be easy to manipulate for younger students by changing it from a cantilever structure to creating the highest structure with a certain number of materials. It could also be manipulated for older students by changing the materials to less obvious choices.

Sticky Note: This would be a great addition to a math lesson as well if the students were required to create, maintain, and balance a budget for creating this machine.

Sticky Note: Grades 2-5 all have portions of Life Sciences devoted to ecosystems and this project could be easily manipulated to focus on different aspects of an ecosystem. I would give specific guidelines in some cases, especially for younger grades, but it would be great to allow older students to have time to brainstorm the kind of ecosystem they wanted to complete and allow them to go through the research process to create a good replica of that ecosystem.

Sticky Note: This would be a great end of unit project as an assessment to see whether students have understood different parts of pollution. Could be useful to make groups inclusive including ELL) and give job titles to ensure that all students would learn and feel comfortable in their groups.

Sticky Note: This would be great to use with younger kids by making the distance shorter that the balloon had to travel and making the material list shorter. It would be a great way of graphing as well: graph the length of of each trial for each team.

The Design Process: Identify a need or problem to be solved; brainstorm potential solutions; document the design throughout the entire design process; select the most appropriate materials to develop a solution that will meet the need; create the solution through a prototype; test and evaluate how well the solution meets the goal; communicate how to improve the solution. This activity can be modified for gifted students by having them record their predictions, as well as measure how much weight each bridge held. The activity can be adjusted for younger grades by having them design only one bridge, rather than several. It can also be adjusted by providing specific materials for the younger students, rather than giving them a wide variety of choices for materials.

Nature of Science Standards: Plan and carry out investigations-often over a period of several lessons-as a class, in small groups or independently; use measurement skills and apply appropriate units when collecting data; keep accurate records in a notebook during investigations and communicate findings to others using graphs, charts, maps and models through oral and written reports. This activity can be adjusted for ELL students by giving them a picture chart on which to record their data. Rather than using all words on the chart, pictures of a cup, plate, cake pan, etc. can be place on the chart, and the students can fill in the results of the distance for each picture. This activity can also be used with younger age groups by having them use other objects, such as a small ping pong ball, to throw. A bigger object may be easier for younger children to throw.

Nature of Science Standard: Make predictions and formulate testable questions; plan and carry out investigations-often over a period of several lessons-as a class, in small groups or independently; perform investigations using appropriate tools and technologies that will extend the senses; use measurement skills and apply appropriate units when collecting data; test predictions with multiple trials; keep accurate records in a notebook during investigations and communicate findings to others using graphs, charts, maps and models through oral and written reports; compare the results of an investigation with the prediction. This activity can be modified for ELL students by allowing those students to be the recorder for the group. This will allow those students to participate, without having the pressure of attempting to measure and use words they may not be comfortable with yet. Allowing these students to be the recorder keeps them involved with the group, while also allowing them to practice the English words for the numbers being recorded. This activity can also be used for younger ages by shortening the activity to throwing the ball five times, rather than ten. The act of throwing the ball make take longer for these students, as well as measuring an angle.

3.1.2 "Investigate how the loudness and pitch of sound changes when the rate of vibrations changes." This activity can be used with ELL students by having them do the activity while saying a variety of words that they need to practice learning. These words could be said in Spanish and English, both. This is a great way to use this activity in a way that is meaningful for those students. This activity can also be used with older ages by having the students record their predictions about what will happen if they use a louder voice, or a deeper pitch with the sound. The students could then compare their results with other students in the class.

1.2.1 "Observe and compare properties of sand, clay, silt and organic matter. Look for evidence of sand, clay, silt and organic matter as components of soil samples." This activity can be modified for gifted students by having them record their predictions about which particles will sink and which particles will float, rather than solely making the observations. This activity can also be modified for older grades by having them do the same thing. The older students can also be told to gather material that is sand, silt, and clay, and try to keep these in separate jars. 

2.2.1 "Observe, describe and measure ways in which the properties of a sample of water (including volume) change or stay the same as the water is heated and cooled and then transformed into different states." This activity can be modified for ELL students by having them record drawings during each observation, rather than writing the words for their observations. This would be a great activity for drawing, because each state looks so much different than the others (solid, liquid, and gas). This activity can be adjusted for older grades by having the students do the same activity with predictions at the beginning of the experiment about what they believe will happen. These students could also make other predictions about other types of matter that would react in the same way the juice ice did. For further exploration, these students could then test their hypothesis regarding other objects and their state of matter.