Making a Class List
Overview
Students will work as a class to create summary of all of their findings. This summary will be shared with the rest of the participating schools around the world.
Objectives
Students will be able to:
- Describe objects in detail.
- Summarize information.
- Participate in using telecommunication to share information with others.
Materials
- Students' lists and sketches of the things they found in their squares
- Large sheets of paper mounted on classroom walls
Time: One hour
Teacher Preparation
Before beginning this lesson you should complete the following:
- You will need to have three large sheets of paper posted on the classroom wall. One sheet should be labeled Plants, another Animals and the other Non-living Objects. You will probably need additional sheets depending on how many observations you want to record.
Procedure
Activity: Putting the details together
For this activity, do the following:
- Explain that they are now going to come up with one big list of all of the plants, animals and non-living objects that were found in all of the squares. Besides listing the items they found they will also need to list as many details about each item as they can remember. Explain that once you create the three lists you will share them with the other schools around the world.
- Pick one of the three categories to start with and go around the room and ask each student one at a time to tell you one item that should be listed. If students repeat objects make sure they realize that you only want to list an object once.
- As students give you answers and fill in the details start recording what they say on the wall chart. Try and be selective in the details you record, only use those that are accurate and reflect the objects that they are talking about. This is important since you will be sharing these details with the other participating schools who will may be re-creating your square from the information you supply.
- Continue this activity until you have filled in all of the details for each category.
- Once you have completed the collection process explain to the students that you will take all of the information and post it to the project's web site for the other students around the world to use. If you have a computer with Internet access in your classroom you can have the students help you input the data or watch you post it. If the Internet computer is not in the classroom it is a good idea to have them take "field trip" to the computer after you have posted the data to see that their information is now online.
- To post the data go to the Project Data section of the project web site and follow the on screen instructions for submitting your data. Make sure that e-mail addess you use is the same one under which you registered for the project.
- Leave the wall charts up for the duration of the project so that they can always refer to them.