Title: Oceans Far and Wide
Overview:
During the final project students will be studying the many different aspects of the the oceans from the eyes of early explorers. The subject anchor for this project will be Social Studies, however, I plan to integrate the areas of Language Arts, Math, and Science through the use of hands on learning and stations, as well as information taken directly from textbooks. Students will be focusing all subject areas on the oceans and related areas.
The students will be studying the European explorers and their experiences with sea travel to the Americas. They will be developing a basic background knowledge of the various European explorers. This background will be gained through the discussion during Social Studies. In conjunction with the Social Studies lessons the students will be learning the composure of the ocean through various activities during Science class. Additional information about oceans will be gained through the reading of several reading selections from the sixth grade reading series. Theses selections also focus on the topic of oceans. Math will be integrated by using maps and charts of ocean explorers to cover basic math skills.
Once the basic groundwork has been developed the students will take the information they have learned in all subject areas and combined it into one culminating activity. This project will be to create a travel brochure that will be written from the European Explorer's point of view. The students will be creating this brochure to persuade other explorers to visit the new world. In order to design the brochure students will need to be involved in the research of the various aspects related to ocean travel. this research wil take place during stations. The travel brochure will then be developed through the use of technology like scanners, flex cams, Internet, CD-ROMS, and word processors. Once the brochures have been entirely completed we will add the finished product to the classroom web page that will display the brochures for others to see. This final activity will be about ten to fifteen days in duration and will be the culminating activity to a series of activities that will take place over an entire quarter.
Although I mainly focused on the last three weeks of the quarter I felt it was necessary to summarize briefly the activities that will lead up to the actual 3 week project. This was done so that it was easy to see how I incorporated the content that was covered in all five subject areas in the culminating activty.
Grade Level and Classroom Composition:
This project will be used with a special education classroom of fifth and sixth graders who are labeled with emotional and behaviorial disorders. These students remain in my classroom for all subject areas so it is my responsibility to plan for all areas of the activity. The students in this classroom have a variety of learning levels and deficits, therefore there will be a great need for many modifications as the project progresses. Another issue that must be addressed with these students it is their deficits surrounding social skills. This deficit also impacts their ability to work collaboratively with other students. Therefore, many of the station rotations will be designed for use with this population of students, but can certainly be modified for use withother classroom situations.
Time Frame:
The basic knowledge for the final project will be done acquired during Language Arts, Social Studies, Math, and Science. Each of these periods last approximately 45 minutes depending on the activity and the day. It is hoped that the entire unit would be completed through the course of seven weeks.
The following table is a outline of the proposed activities for each week during the unit. To see detailed activity descriptions click on the link for the appropriate week.
Math Address basic addition and
subtraction skills with explorers travels. Learn basic metric conversion by
plotting courses of travel for various explorers. Address graphing skills with the use
of information generated by the study of
explorers. Begin information scavenger hunt
through the use of stations and technology. These two weeks will be spent
developing the final travel brochure and web
page. Language Arts Introduce the first reading selection
called "Oceans"" Introduce the second reading section
entitled "The Search for the Right Whale" Introduce the third reading selection
entitled "After the Spill" Begin information scavenger hunt
through the use of stations and technology. These two weeks will be spent
developing the final travel brochure and web
page. Social Studies Begin giving students basic
background information on European explorers beginning with
the Vikings. Continue the discussion of European
explorers focusing on the Spanish explorers. Continue the discussion of European
explorers focusing on the French explorers. Begin information Scavenger hunt
through the use of stations and technology. These two weeks will be spent
developing the final travel brochure and web
page. Science Activities focusing on water tension
and ways to alter it. Properties of hot and cold
water. Comparing the properties of water as
a liquid and solid. Explore the concepts of ocean tides
and currents and how these both would effect the
travel of the explorers. Discuss the change of seasons related
to the travel to different hemispheres. Discuss how this
would effect the voyage of the explorers.
*Please note that the last three weeks of the assignments will be the actual culminating activity. During this time students will be using stations to research topics and issues that will be used to create their travel brochure. The previous 4 weeks will be spent providing students with the background knowledge to better develop during weeks five, six, and seven. Therefore, the majority of the content offor this final project will be completed during the last three weeks of the quarter which will be the culminating activity.
The culminating activty will develop over about a period of three weeks, however, stations will account for at least a week and a half of the time. Therefore, I have only included the culminating activity for two weeks on the chart to avoid the overlap of content.
In order to see more information about the weekly activities please click on the appropriate link above.
Overview of Culminating Activity
For a final culmination to this unit the students will create a travel brochure that will eventually placed into a classroom created web page. Students will work in groups to create a travel brochure that will encompass several guidelines associated with the content that the students have been studying. Prior to this activity the students will have already designed a classroom web page. This project will be add to the web page so that the activities can be displayed and so the students gain more experience with the skill of web page design. For more information on the culminating activity see above of click here to visit the culminating activity page.