Sometimes the biggest mistakes turn out to be the greatest inventions!

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Week 2 Reflection of my STEM Lesson

The STEM lesson that I chose to do was on viruses and germs. The science portion of the lesson was a lab activity.  Every student is given a Petri dish filled with flour except one person has baking soda in their Petri dish.  This person will represent the person with the contagious cooties virus.  They pretend that they are at an end of the year pool party and begin sharing their "drinks" (Petri dishes) with each other.  To share drinks the student’s combined the substances in their Petri dish and then divide it back up.  They share their drink with a total of three people.  The students then go back to their seat and are given an eye dropper filled with baking soda.  If their Petri dish fizzes they caught the virus.  They are then placed in cooperative learning groups to answer the question and analysis portion of the lesson and try to trace the path of the virus.  

The technology (and engineering) portion of the lesson involves displaying their group’s virus path map on the video flex.  They also have an extension project with their collaborative group where they have to research the historical perspective on current sanitary practices.  The students can create a model or experiment for their project.  

The math portion of the lesson has the students trying to figure out how many people would be infected in certain situations.  For example: If two people are infected and they each share their drinks with two people and then those two people share with two people, how many total people are now infected?  

The 5 E's strategy was very helpful in planning my lesson however, the lesson format was very time consuming.  If this was how my district required lesson plans to be done I feel like I would spend all my time writing lesson plans and no time practicing and preparing.  With that being said, I do feel like I should be familiar with other lesson formats so I am glad that I am being exposed to it now.  

If I were to implement this lesson, I believe that it would run very smoothly, the only portion that would require extra thought is the extension project.  This would require a large portion of class time and the students would also have to dedicate a large portion of their own time to the project.  

6 comments:

  1. I love the science portion of your lesson! This would be a fun experiment to do towards the end of the year for my students when they are busy worrying about their end of the year state tests. We don't have one for science this year, so we try and finish our lessons early and then relax for the remainder of the school days. Do you have any materials as far as student handouts for this lesson?

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    1. Yes, I have a handout that I give them. It is only in the beginning stages right now. I still need to add the math questions and the technology extension.

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  2. I really enjoyed the math part of your lesson. I also liked the early finisher extension. You might want to choose 5 scientists and assign or instruct students to choose one to research.

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  3. I enjoyed reading your blog post. You did a great job focusing on all parts of the "STEM" lesson plan. Reading your post gave me a better understanding of how to write my next STEM lesson plan!

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  4. Lauren, nicely done. I do agree with you about this as a lesson template. Can you imagine trying to write one of those for every lesson. Some lessons take days but others take 30 minutes. In a 180 days this would be treacherous. Can you imagine the size of the binder to hold it all? It is thought provoking and a great exercise to remind us of what we should be considering for sure. I can see this as a staff meeting activity to bring everyone into considering what they really should focus on.

    Lori

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