Lesson Plan Analysis

For this paper this writer researched three lesson plans that include inquiry-based learning. Since this writer's field (writing education for adults at the University level) does not really lend itself well to inquiry/technology-based learning this writer has chosen to discuss inquiry- based learning for children. The three lesson plans looked at were "Down the Drain," a lesson about water usage across the globe for grades 4 to 8 (http://www.k12science.org/curriculum/drainproj/), square of life for grades 1 to 5, a lesson about living things in our backyard and around the world (http://www.k12science.org/curriculum/squareproj/), and the global water sampling project, a lesson for ages 9 to 12 about water and water safety (http://www.k12science.org/curriculum/waterproj/index.shtml). The lesson that this writer has chosen to discuss in depth is "square of life."

Square of life is a lesson that focuses on the ability of the environment around us to educate. There are many possible things that can be discovered in this lesson and there is no particular curriculum that students who do this lesson must learn. The basic component or activity of the lesson is to look at all the living and nonliving things in one square meter. The square meter can be located at school or at home and the students should record each thing in the environment and catalog or categorize them in a way that the data can be compared with other students. This can be done with help on database applications and graphing applications can be used to show trends in the data. Students can use word processing applications to send letters to students in other schools about their squares. Teachers can ask questions, ask students to hypothesize about averages and percentages and ask students about what they think they might find in one square meter elsewhere. Some schools across the globe have even connected with other schools in different regions to share and compare data. Data can be mapped in many ways using different technology software as well as by hand.

Comparing, contrasting, and finding different things to do with the results seems to be one of the most interesting parts of this lesson. Sending the results over the internet and comparing them with those who first started the lesson am exciting possibility for the students! Compilations and comparisons can then be made between the two sets of data. This unit can be expanded on artistically as well. Students can make models or drawings of their square. They can draw what they think might appear in or what they see in pictures of other climates such as desert, tropical, mountainous, arctic etc. There is no one right or wrong answer to any part of this activity; the learning occurs through exploration and asking questions as well as through manipulating the data in mathematic and artistic ways. If I were teaching the unit I would include books on each of the different climates and perhaps read one to the class that encompassed all of the climates before having the students chart off their square. I would also show them how to find different areas so they would not all end up with similar results.

Reference

The Center for Innovation in Engineering and Science Education. Collaborative

Projects Stevens Institute of Technology. 2006.