Skip to main content

Weather - End of Unit Tech Project


Here is a technology project that I did with a fourth grade science class at the end of their weather unit. This was my sample project I showed children. I had done a project similar to it at the end of last year and wrote about it HERE.

I had actually helped a teacher do this paper piece project in Social Studies (they were researching explorers) so I felt pretty confident introducing it in science (we had worked out the kinks and problems in the social studies class :)

The project took four days.

Day 1 - Students were introduced to the project, grouped, picked their topic (they could choose between layers of the atmosphere, weather tools and their uses, severe weather and related saftey tips, the water cycle, and clouds and cloud formation), and started working on their graphic organizer.

Day 2 - Students worked on their graphic organizer, script, and paper pieces

Day 3 - Students were at various stages of completion. They were either still working on their paper pieces or ready to film (we sent groups to the library to film where it was quiet - filming took at most 15 minutes. The prep work and dry runs took the majority of time).

Day 4 - All student filming had to finish. Students who were done created a poster of their topic.

They turned out adorably (I'll get a student project posted soon). Some were better then others but it was a fun way for students to demonstrate their knowledge while working with technology.

We used Flip Cameras, Flip Camera tripods, and Windows Live Movie Maker.

Labels:

Comments

Rebecca Reas said…
What did the graphic organizer that students used look like? I want to do this with my 8th grade science students and have an organizer for them to work with but not sure what all I should include! Awesome project by the way!
January 8, 2012 at 6:54 PM
Eve Heaton said…
I just made a plain eight panel graphic organizer. I found it easier if the kids drew the pictures they wanted first in the panels and then wrote the script. I had one group write the script first and then draw the pictures and it was a much longer process.
January 9, 2012 at 6:33 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Digital Citizen Cards

This project idea came from a monthly challenge put out by Adobe Express. We have the free EDU version deployed in our district and I thought this might be fun to try with a class. I liked that there was a prize element where the students could win a classroom set of hero cards  and it tied in with Digital Citizenship Week (October 17-21).  I teamed up with an elementary technology lab teacher and we decided to try it with one fifth grade class.  We looked over the available templates and decided we liked the layout of the 6-8 template the best (because they had to list advice for staying safe online).  One of the best things about these Adobe monthly challenge templates is that they can be modified. The revised template can then be sent to students via a link or through Google Classroom.  All the templates for this challenge Adobe gives you a sample template with sample wording but we wanted students to come up with their own wording. Neither one of us was ke...
Post a Comment
Read more

Picture of the Day - Activity

I attended a training class and a science coach shared an activity that he does with his students to help them differentiate between observations, inferences, and predictions. He puts a picture on the interactive white board as a warm up (he gets the pictures from a variety of sources but uses National Geographic's Picture of the Day a lot). The picture above is from the National Geographic site. He has the students make five observations. Then he makes the students make five inferences. Finally he has the students make five predictions. He does this every day and it really drives home the difference between those three key inquiry vocabulary terms. I've done this activity with both my sixth and fourth grade science classes and the students really got into it and became proficient at telling me the difference between those terms.
13 comments
Read more

Weathering, Erosion, and Deposition Activity

I saw this activity at a science conference years ago and haven't had a chance to use it in a classroom until this week (mainly because I didn't teach weathering, erosion, and deposition). It is a great way to reinforce the definition of the weathering, erosion, and deposition in a highly kinesthetic manner. Basically you break the students up into groups of three. One group is "Weathering" another group is "Erosion" and the third group is "Deposition". Add tape to the back because you are going to stick them to the forehead of the children in each group. The "weathering" students get a sheet of paper that is their "rock" they will be breaking down. At the start of the activity the "weathering" students will start ripping tiny pieces of their "rock" and handing it to the "erosion" students. The "erosion" students will be running their tiny piece of "rock...
5 comments
Read more