This lesson is something I created and tried out for the first time this year. What I found is that not only was it successful in that students were able to clearly and effectively communicate their understanding in a variety of formats using our science terminology in a meaningful way, but that the project format also gave me the opportunity to observe the way in which individual students approached their learning tasks. Please check out my short video below to give you a snapshot of my rationale for this lesson and you can hear more about student strategies in the lesson reflection video in the last section!
1. Pass out the Levels of Organization document to each student.
2. Ask students to put a star by the ORGANISM level. Tell students that their first goal is to choose an organism they would like to learn more about.
3. Write on the board a brief outline of student tasks for this project:
3. Show an example visual representation to explain how each level of organization should relate to whatever organism they choose.
4. Ask students to move to their lab tables to work on choosing their organism and beginning the process of defining the terms of relating them to their specific choice of living thing.
1. Once they are at their lab tables, students can work individually or collaborate and discuss their options for the organisms they would like to investigate and their working definitions for each level of organization.
2. For resources, students can use their textbooks, other books in the classroom, and their personal devices (phones, tablets, laptops) while working together on this project.
Now on to Day 2 of this two day lesson!