Science Unit Ideas

1. My first idea for a science unit, and the one I plan on actually designing. I will be planning on doing an ABC wikibook about animals with second graders. My students will either draw a picture on pixie, a picture we scan they drew, or one off from the web to have more ideas. It just so happens that I have 26 students this year in my classroom so each student will be assigned a letter, and we will brainstorm different animals with that letter. My students will do research on the internet and in books, and create a web on kidspiration to organize their research. Then I will hand out two different guidelines for writing their piece, one will only be ten sentences along, but students cannot just get an image off from the web, or the writing can be twenty sentences long, and the students can get an image from the web.

2. My fourth grade students are doing a project on the forces of Earth, such as a volcano, earthquake, or hurricane. I would have my students, in groups, design an experiment or example of how their force works, such as a model of a volcano or have a model with houses and have water come rushing in to show a flood. It would take a lot of time to build these models in class, and I would ask parents to help in anyway they can whether it be providing materials or helping their children build their model. This needs to be built in class though because I will be video taping the students, unless parents will videotape the group together at their own home. With the videotapes we will make an imovie with the group saying how the model and actual Earth force works. My only concern with this idea is the two week limit, I think it would take a lot longer to actually build, videotape, and produce an imovie with fourth graders.

3. It is almost Earth Day, and my fifth graders are going to make a comic about the environment on comic life. Each student will research a certain topic about saving the environment, such as how to recycle, then students will make a comic about their research. Students will need to create characters and dialog that will fit the comic. In this project students will be researching how to save the environment, such as studying global warming, but instead of a research paper, they will make a comic. Students will need to find images and pictures for their comic, but the challenge is to make it, so anybody could understand the dialog. In other words I want students to use their own language not scientific language while making these comics, such as, "Dude, pick up or trash!" Students will be studying the environment and how to better their own community from this project.

4. My third graders need to study plants and how a plant grows. Students will pick their own flower or plant to study how it grows, such as a daisy. They will learn how it starts as a seed and the stages it goes through to become a flower. My students will make illustrations on pixie of the different stages a flower goes through. Then students will put the pixie images onto frames to make an audio book on how a plant grows. The students will be adding text for a general headline of the stage the plant is in for the picture, then they will be adding audio that they wrote previously. When students are done we will put their projects on our class website for the community to enjoy.

5. My sixth graders are studying inventors, and will pick one inventor to study. Instead of writing a research paper, students will write a script of their inventor being interviewed. I will be the interviewer for the students unless a parent or friend would like to be the interviewer. The students will be making a podcast about famous inventors, and the different episodes will be the students individual inventor. So students will have their script and make a podcast, but must find ten different images to add to the podcast of the inventor and the invention/s. Students will also hand in a bibliography to me to show where they got their research from.