In the journal Science Activities I found an article on a study done in a fourth grade class in Greenwood Laboratory School. The study was focusing on how well the students could remember and recall concepts that they learned through hands-on experiences. What interested me most in this article wasn't the study that was conducted, but rather the 3 different activities that they conducted during the study. The three activities covered three different topics. The first topic was the melting of glaciers and ice, the second topic was the differences between the North and South pole, and the third topic was the geography and landforms of Antarctica. The article gives a lengthy list of materials that would be needed to conduct the three different experiments in the classrooms, but my focus today is going to be the different activities.
The first activity raised the question of whether or not melting glaciers will cause the sea level to rise. Before the main activity they conducted a pre-activity. The students had a clear cup with water and several ice cubes in the cup. Students would mark where the water level was on the cup. After they had marked the cup the students would predict whether the water level would rise or not. This activity also had the students engage in a vocabulary lesson on the difference between a glacier and an iceberg. The main activity consisted of students in groups of 2 or 3. Students would roll a chunk of play dough into a ball and then flatten the top of the ball and place it into an aluminum plate. The flattened play dough represents the continent and students pour water around the play dough to represent the ocean. Ice cubes are placed into the water as well, to represent the icebergs, and a hunk of ice is placed on top of the play dough to represent the glacier. Students then mark the play dough with a toothpick and predict whether the water level will rise or not. Students wait for the ice cubes and hunk of ice to melt and record their findings. After they are done with their experiment the students discuss why the level didn't change from the "icebergs" but did change from the melting "Glacier".
While the students were waiting for the icebergs and glaciers to melt they were given a review of the differences between the north pole and the south pole. After the review they were then given a quiz. The quiz given had artwork on it as well as the quiz questions. This quiz was used as the second activity in the study and in the article there is a table displaying the questions and how many answered them correctly and how many answered them incorrectly.
The third activity focuses on Antarctica's land forms. The students were given a blank map of Antarctica and a list of features to depict on the map. Students were allowed to use any resources that were available such as computers, maps, globes, etc. Once students were done locating the different features the teacher then showed the students a completed and correct version of the map. They were then debriefed on how it is difficult to locate land forms in Antarctica because its features are constantly changing.
This article was very descriptive. It listed the standard alignment with each of the different activities, gave figures for each of the different activities such as photos of the students performing the first activity, a table of the quiz results, and a photo of the map. I really enjoyed this article because it showed many different ways to engage students in just one lesson. The lesson focus was clear, and all the activities focused on different learning styles making this lesson idea really easy to incorporate into any elementary classroom.
Link to Article:
http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=4&sid=b46f5da7-d6e6-4ac9-932c-0098f05ca6bb%40sessionmgr14&hid=23&bdata=JmxvZ2luLmFzcCZzaXRlPWVob3N0LWxpdmUmc2NvcGU9c2l0ZQ%3d%3d#db=a9h&AN=38221276
