Thursday, March 14, 2013

Landforms Projects

        This week I read an article on www.ehow.com about different projects that many teachers assign their students during the land forms unit. This article has given me many great ideas for what projects I could assign students to go along with the land forms units as well. The article describes 4 different projects that students can construct such as, making maps, sculpting plateaus, tropical island treat, and desert diorama.

         The first project listed is the making maps project. This is where students students create a map based on a state, country, or Continent depending on the grade level. Students then use symbols included in the legend to mark the different land forms that exist within the map. This is a great way to get kids thinking about all the different types of land forms in the state or country they live in as well as those in other places of the world. Depending on group and class size you can have students make a map of all the different states in the same region as them, or even different countries and continents as well.

        The second project is sculpting plateaus. This activity is constructed with all edible pieces. The students form a plateau out of already made rice krispies, cover it with chocolate and make plants out of green fruits, and candies. This would be an exciting project for students to work on, whether it is in grade school, middle school, or even high school. Knowing that they can eat the project after they are done with it, would probably be great motivation for the students to make it look really good.

           The third project is a tropical island treat, another edible project for students to create. All you have to do is make a blue gelatin mold, place a melon semicircle, or a large cookie in the middle of it so that it appears as an island. The students are then able to decorate the island with edible palm trees, and other edible features of an island. Allowing the students to decorate the island would be a great way to get students thinking about what an island really does look like, and what things they would see on an island.

          The last project that the article listed was a desert diorama. This is where students create a mini replica of what a desert looks like. They can use a shoe box, fill the bottom with sand, and add small replicas of plants and animals that would be seen in a desert. This project can also be adapted to many other types of land forms as well. Students can as creative with this as they want, and honestly I think that this is my favorite project listed so far. You can have students create many different land forms and even make a mini science fair within your classroom with just this one project.

         This article offered me many great ideas for fun and interactive activities that I can implement in my future classroom. It also gave me ways to have my students apply the knowledge of land forms that i would be teaching them. I think that all of the projects that I talked about are great for students to do. I also like how many of them can be used throughout all of the grade levels. They are all very interactive and give students a chance to not only show their understanding but also show their creative sides as well.



Here is the link to the article:
http://www.ehow.com/info_8323781_science-projects-landforms-elementary-school.html

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