Enhancing Knowledge of Earth Science

Enhancing Knowledge of Earth Science

        I took an Introduction to Earth Science last semester and while reading the course textbook on Earth Science, I was surprised to say that I actually knew about what was mentioned in the textbook. Earth Science in High School was difficult for me because I had three different teachers that year teaching Earth Science to my class, but when I took Earth Science for my general core requirement in college, I didn't think that I would need to know the information to teach in Elementary School. I'm so glad that I took it now. I felt pretty strong with all of the concepts revolving around Earth Science, but two members in my group did not feel as confident with the layers of the Earth and the Earth's surface, so we created an infograph based on that theme. Below is the infograph that we created:

       I enjoyed working with my group members to make this infograph because it reflect on our learning styles and presented the information that we needed to cover effectively. We focused primarily on the rock cycle and the three types of rocks. Although the links don't work for the image, we focused a lot on finding different kinds of lesson plans that could be used to reinforce or introduce the concepts of the infograph in the classroom.

       We were also instructed to create a quiz using a digital tool based on Earth Science. I am familiar with Kahoot and Socrative which is why I decided to go out of the box and look for a different quiz digital tool that I could use. I stumbled upon a tool called Quizizz which is a quiz website for teachers to make the quiz similar to a game while emphasizing the individuality of the quiz. The students have the questions in front of them and can work at their own pace. 

Click here to view my quiz that I created using Quizizz!

Cleaning Up a Water Pollution Nightmare

Cleaning Up a Water Pollution Nightmare

            

           When we were told that we were going to create a science fair project, the first thought that came to mind was how excited I am to actually participate in a science fair. I had always heard about science fairs through the news and in movies, but I had never actually gone to a science or participated in a science fair. As it grew closer to the time of the science fair, I began to think about what type of project I could do that could relate to my unit plan. While working on the inquiry instruction lesson plan ideas for my group, I figured out what I was going to do for my science fair project. 

          I am a true animal lover and I had the television on while working on finding an inspiration for the inquiry instruction lesson plan. The video below is the Dawn commercial that came on the television which was my inspiration and what gave me my idea for my science fair project.

Dawn Saves Wildlife Episode 1: Duck, Duck, Oil

         After watching this commercial, I wondered what other types of materials could clean up oil from water and that is what I did for my science fair project. Oil spills are a nightmare to marine life and it really hit me when I started watching other Dawn commercials on youtube about how Dawn cleans up the oil from the animals. I came up with a list of materials and timed myself to see how long it would take for me to extract the oil from the water as much as I can so that each cup looked about the same color. It wasn't to hard to do, but it was messy. According to my findings, my hypothesis of cotton balls being the most efficient, fastest tool to use was proven to be wrong by about 3 seconds. 

What did I learn?

        Aside from what I gathered during my experiment, I learned that after all of the years that I have been making conclusion, I have been doing them incorrectly. In Elementary School, we were taught to just write our findings with supportive evidence, but in a project we are supposed to report our findings and what should be done or could be done next to inform anyone else who is going to take on the project next. I never knew that until this experience. Even with the criticism, I enjoyed doing the science fair project and I would not mind doing a science fair project in the future for my future work place to hopefully win a grant for the science program through the STEM Challenges. 

Pollution Party

Pollution Party

       Finally, it was my group's turn to teach! I walked into the classroom a bit nervous with butterflies in my stomach, but the minute that the actual teaching process began, I felt confident and I overcame my nerves. My group and I organized our lessons so that we knew when and how to express emphasis and what we are teaching. Each one of my group members became and expert on their topic and our jobs. I believe that we were all knowledgeable about what we were teaching. Time management was big thing that I was worried about because I thought that our experiment would take a lot of time, but as I kept checking the clock, I knew we would have enough time and I was able to relax. 

Here is the link to our Google Slides Presentation that combined our Direct and Inquiry instruction. 

Direct Instruction: 

During our direct instruction, we taught information about the types of pollution and the three R's: reduce, reuse, and recycle. I felt that our lesson went according to plan. The picture on the left is my interpretation of our presentation because it shared basic information to students. The "lazy person's" part of the picture, I am referring to people in general when they are littering and not thinking about the consequences. Each one of the group members played an important part to the successful outcome of our direct instruction. The reason why there were so many visuals instead of words on the slides are because personally, I am a visual learner and a presentation for younger kids should revolve around images instead of words for the students to create visual, mental memories and understandings of the terms. 

Inquiry Instruction:

         During the inquiry instruction, Group #4 engaged the students into a water pollution themed experiment that is called Fred's Journey. Throughout the experiment, the students were to pollute the water with ingredients based on a narration of Fred's Journey. I believed that our inquiry instruction went the same way as the direct instruction like how we hoped that it would. We maintained classroom management by having a teacher candidate with each group and one teacher candidate (me) walking from group to group to facilitate. The point of this inquiry instruction was to show students how polluted water can have an impact on marine life and give them the opportunity to reflect on water pollution in general. 

Constructive Criticism & Overall Opinion:

         Personally, I think our group did a very well job with presenting and teaching our lesson plans to the students. The students seemed really engaged into the lessons and there were no major complications aside from the brief technical difficulty when trying to open the independent practice for our direct instruction. For the direct instruction, I wish that we could have met up as a complete group before hand to really rehearse, but we did meet up briefly before actually teaching to rehearse. For the inquiry instruction, I wish that we could have had more time for the students to fully complete the independent practice because I felt like it was a bit rushed. Excellent Job Group #4! We did it!