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INQUIRY, SCIENTISTS, and the
ENVIRONMENT 5th Grade (ISE)
Curriculum Alignment
Through a 2-hour classroom activity, students are
engaged in learning and problem solving hypothetical local
environmental issues related to the 5th and 6th grade science and
social studies curriculum. The 5th grade program asks
children to answer the question: “Where shall we build our
new school?” Students are divided into groups and given a set
of facts and a specific location (park, current school area, city,
mall, or farmland) to consider as they analyze data and decide if they
should build a new school in that location. In each location, building
a new school will impact threatened and endangered plants and animals
and information is provided about the plants and animals in
question. Students are provided with background information
and asked to think like scientists using the information available to
decide, “How does construction impact the
ecosystem?” Given all the information, the team
must decide if they will build a school in the designated location and
provide reasons for building or not building the school. Each
team presents their information to the entire class.
The 6th grade program focuses on the aftermath of
a tornado. Working in groups, students are asked to solve the
question: “What should we do now? Should we rebuild,
relocate, demolish or leave alone the area hit by the tornado and let
nature take its course?” The student “disaster
control teams” approach the problem thinking like zoologists,
communication engineers, environmental scientists, and other scientists
and engineers to answer the questions based on information
provided. Each group focuses on a different area that was
destroyed by the tornado. Students must analyze and interpret their
information to reach a solution to restoring the area and must again
consider the impact on endangered plants and animals. Again,
final team decisions are presented to the entire class.
Grade
5: Regions and People of
North America
People
in Societies Standard
Students analyze the impact of commonality and diversity among
perspectives, practices and products of cultural, ethnic and social
groups within local, national, regional and global settings.
Benchmark: 1. Compare the perspectives, practices and cultural products
of North American cultural groups. (Region 3 in the U.S.)
Students become scientists with different perspectives in
dealing with the threatened and endangered plants and animals.
For example, within the Mall Committee, the
Herpetologist
would like to protect the Eastern Massasauga Snake; the Ecosystems Research Scientist
is geared to enhancing outdoor recreation.
Geography
Standard
Students use
a working knowledge of geographic locations, patterns and processes to
show the interrelationship between the physical environment and human
activity, and to explain the interactions that occur in our
increasingly interdependent world.
Place
Benchmark: 2.
Identify the physical
and human features that make up the geography of North America.
(Region 3 in the U.S.)
The students
identify the states in Region
3 of the U.S. including Ohio. Features, climate
and physical characteristics are recognized. Threatened and
endangered plants and animals ecosystems are included in each of the
hypothetical “proposed new school” sites.
Human
Environmental Interaction
Benchmark: 3. Identify and
explain ways people have affected the physical environment of North
America and analyze the positive and negative consequences.
Objectives of
5th Grade ISE (Inquiry, Scientists and the Environment) include
introducing threatened and endangered plants and animals, careers, air,
water and land quality and the interdependence of the
ecosystem. Students analyze the positive and negative consequences of humans changing
the physical environment when discussing where to build a
school among the five proposed sites.
Movement
Benchmark: 4. Analyze ways that
transportation and communication are inked to patterns of settlement
and economic activity and how these may lead to conflict and
cooperation.
Construction
of a new school becomes visually apparent to students when each student
has a photograph of a construction site. Air, water, acid
rain, toxic and chemical waste disposal, point source and non-point
source pollution “experts” become part of the
“committee” studying proposed school
sites. Examples include an Air Quality Professional,
Limnologist, Atmospheric Chemist and Environmental Scientist.
Region
Benchmark:
5. Analyze patterns of physical and human characteristics
that define regions in North America.
Renewable and
nonrenewable forest,
soil and water will be disturbed in each proposed school
site.
Government
Standard
Using a
working knowledge of the purposes, structures and functions of
political systems at the local, state, national and international
levels, students understand that people create systems of government as
structures of power and authority to provide order and stability.
Rules and Laws
Benchmark: 2. Give examples of
documents that determine the structure of state and national
governments in the United States and explain how these documents foster
self-government in a democracy.
Region 3
threatened and endangered plants and animals provide medicines, beauty
and jobs for scientists. Ohio law protects endangered plants
and animals. Students’ debate over where to build a
new school and the impact this decision will have on all of these
factors
Social
Studies Skills and Methods Standards
Students
demonstrate the ability to collect, organize, evaluate and synthesize
information from multiple sources and draw conclusions from this
information about social studies issues. Students communicate
this information using appropriate social studies terminology in oral,
written or multimedia form and apply what they have learned to societal
issues in simulated or real world settings.
Obtaining
Information
Benchmark:
1. Obtain information from a variety of primary and secondary
sources using the component parts of the source.
Students have
an information page that they read and complete a cloze procedure Scientific Data Sheet.
Students keep their own Scientific Data sheet upon completion of the
ISE activity. All information sheets are different and the
research information sources are included in the teacher
packet.
Benchmark:
2. Use a variety of sources to organize information and draw
inference.
The five committees
formed to decide where to build the new school not only draw inference
from within their committees, but as a class, time permitting,
inferences are drawn. More often than not none of the
committees want to build the school at their proposed site because
saving the threatened and endangered animals become more
important. However, in processing the activity the importance
of schools and children’s education is debated and moving the
plants and animals or building the school around the site and
protecting the area is brought forth in the discussion.
Teachers also receive an outline for this discussion if the class time
allotted is not adequate.
Communicating
Information
Benchmark: 3. Communicate
social studies information using graphs or tables.
Students
present information about their type of career to the entire class
showing pictures of the threatened and endangered plants and
animals. Also students complete mathematical problems using statistical
information.
Working
Together to Solve Problems and Make Decisions
Benchmark: 4. Use problem-solving skills
to make decisions.
The ISE
activity includes identifying a problem: Where to build a new
school. ISE gathers information with 30 different information
sheets. Students consider options; consider advantages and
disadvantages of building a new school from among five areas that
contain threatened and endangered Ohio plants and animals.
Each committee chooses to build or not build and the class decides if
an area has not been selected. Criteria for each threatened
and endangered habitat becomes part of the criteria for judging and
evaluating where to build and the effectiveness of building.
Mathematics:
Grade Five
Number,
Number Sense and Operations Standard
Benchmark: 3. Identify and generate equivalent forms of
fractions, decimals and percents. Benchmark 13.
Estimate the results of computations involving whole numbers, fractions
and decimals, using a variety of strategies.
Data Analysis
and Probability Standard
Benchmark 1. Read, construct and interpret frequency tables, circle
graphs and line graphs.
ISE 6th Grade
Social Studies Curriculum Alignment
6th Grade:
Regions and People of the World
Geography
Standard
Students use
a working knowledge of geographic locations, patterns and processes to
show the interrelationship between the physical environment and human
activity, and to explain the interactions that occur in our
increasingly interdependent world.
Place
Benchmark: 2. Explain how
physical processes produce geographic variations in landforms and
climate, and how physical features affect human settlement and activity.
The premise
that a tornado has impacted five areas within a hypothetical community
in Ohio allows for interactions and decisions. For example
the Network Design Engineer has the responsibility to rebuild the
railroad tracks, but the Zoologist is more concerned with the
endangered Woodrat and the Ornithologist is more concerned with the
endangered Spotted Owl. Both of these threatened and
endangered animals habitat is along the railroad. Will
rebuilding be detrimental to those animals? Also the
Communications Engineer wants to restore telephone communication, but
should the lines be placed underground and if so how will that impact
the endangered Ohio Cave Beetle? Who will pay for this?
Mathematics:
Grade 6
Number,
Number Sense and Operations Standard
Benchmark 4. Describe what it means to
find a specific percent of a number, using real-life examples.
Benchmark 10. Recognize that a quotient
may be larger than the dividend when the divisor is a fraction; e.g., 6
÷ ½ =
12.
Benchmark 11. Perform fraction and decimal
computations and justify their solutions; e.g., using manipulatives,
diagrams, mathematical reasoning.
Data Analysis
and Probability Standard
Benchmark 1. Read, construct and interpret line graphs, circle graphs
and histograms. Benchmark 6. Make logical inferences from
statistical data.
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