Participate Project

Our Footprints, Our Future!

                 

By: Zachary Jones

Project's Objectives:

The students will see how they are affecting the environment and will create specific goals in ways that will allow them to reduce their carbon footprints.

How Projects' Objectives Ties Into Standards:

        Science:

• 6.5.1.B. - Recognize and explain that decisions influencing the use of natural resources may have benefits, drawbacks, unexpected consequences, and trade offs.

• a. Identify and describe personal and community behaviors that waste natural resources and or cause environmental harm and those behaviors that maintain or improve the environment.

       Language Arts:

• 6.4.2. - Compose oral, written, and visual presentations that express personal ideas, inform, and persuade.

       Technology:

• 2.  Communication and Collaboration

• Students use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others.  Students:
  

• a.     interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts, or others employing a variety of digital environments and media.

• b.     communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats.

• 4.  Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making

• Students use critical thinking skills to plan and conduct research, manage projects, solve problems, and make informed decisions using appropriate digital tools and resources.  Students:

• a.     identify and define authentic problems and significant questions for investigation.

• b.     plan and manage activities to develop a solution or complete a project.

• c.     collect and analyze data to identify solutions and/or make informed decisions.
  

Materials:

• Computers
• Internet access
• Microsoft Excel
  
• Scanners (projects)
  
• Digital camera (projects)
  
• Microphones (projects)
• Audacity (projects)
• Headphones (projects)
  

Technical Needs:

• Students need to know how to post to wikis.
• Students need to know how to create a table and chart using Microsoft Excel.
  
• Students need to know how to use and upload images from a digital camera. (projects)
• Students need to know how to scan photos and place them in documents. (projects)

Lesson Plan:

    Before Project:

1. Send home permission slips for wikis and online collaboration project.
   
2. Reserve computer labs for two days in a row and then again once (or twice in a row if possible) a month for the rest of the year.
3. As soon as guest speakers are announced, reserve one of the labs for that day ASAP.

    Day 1:

1. Introduce the environment by reading The Lorax by Dr. Seuss.
2. Have students write a letter to the Lorax explaining what he could have done instead of cutting down all of the Truffula trees.

    Day 2:

1. Discuss ways that the students feel that they hurt or help the environment. 
   
2. Have students hypothesize their carbon footprint number.
3. Have students go to the computer lab to use the zero footprint calculator.
   
4. As students are completing the calculator, explain why certain choices are available (riding a donkey to school) and pull up a world map to have the students show countries that may have these options.
5. Have students recognize suggested goals as they are completing the carbon footprint calculator and write them down.
6. Have students document their carbon footprint number and their number's comparison to the graph of others'.
   
7. Have each student create an Excel spreadsheet that contains their carbon footprint number.
8. Have each student go to the class wiki from the iEARN project and record their carbon footprint.
   
9. After students have completed using the zero footprint calculator, have them type the final copies of their letters to the Lorax to be handed in.

    Day 3:

1. Make a list of ways that students can minimize their carbon footprint.
2. Take students to computer lab to log back into the zero footprint calculator.
3. Have the students log on to the learning circle discussion forum and discuss ways that they can reduce their carbon footprint.  They can also ask questions about how their life is different and ways that others have lowered their carbon footprint.
4. Have the students set goals of how they will lower their carbon footprint by the next month.
   

    Once a month afterwards:

1. Have students go to the lab and calculate their carbon footprint.
2. Record on their Excel spreadsheet their carbon footprint numbers and create a graph showing how it has changed over time.
3. Have the students input their number into the classroom wiki.
4. Have students log onto learning circle discussion and respond to posts from other classrooms.  State also ways that they have succeeded or failed in reducing their carbon footprint explaining what may have caused this.  Set new goals for the next month.
   
5. Participate in the monthly projects (video, posters, advertisements) available through the iEARN project.  

    When available:

1. Go to computer lab, listen and participate in discussion with guest speakers.
2. Write a formal write-up of what was learned from speaker or discussion.
3. Write a thank you letter to the guest speaker.
   

Closure:

1. Have the students reflect from their graphs on how they have affected their carbon footprint and what they have learned through the project.
2. Construct a letter to their principal explaining ways that our school could reduce its' carbon footprint.  In the letter the students will include a screen shot of their graph and explain ways that they have affected their own carbon footprint.
   

Evaluation:

• Lorax Letter Rubric - graded when the students hand in their Lorax letter;
  
• Graph and Paragraph Rubric - graded at the end of the project;
• Classroom Wiki Data Rubric - graded at the end of the project that is just an overview of the class' results (Teacher will use to create a class graph);
• Learning Circle Rubric - graded during each learning circle;
  
• Letter to Principal Rubric - graded at the end of project;
  
• Additional rubrics for assigned projects thought of and assigned by teachers in the learning circle will be created using RubiStar.

Project Evaluation:

The success of this project will be based off the students understanding of how they can affect their carbon footprint.  This is the main principle that I want the students to understand and if it is met then I will consider this a partial success.  If the students are able to interact with other students across the country, or even better, across the world, and communicate the different ways that they can reduce their carbon footprint then it will be even more successful.  The students will also learn about the culture of the other students just by the reasons that they had for having a different number for their carbon footprint.  The final way that the project will be a success is if the class is able to listen to and participate with a guest speaker from another part of the world.  I will also have the students take a survey at the end of this project so that they are able to communicate about how they felt the project went.

Contingency Plans:

• Internet Access - If the internet is not working and we do not have access to the sites or the calculator, we will either move the project back a few days and go on with the rest of our unit (depending on where we are in the unit) or the students will complete the schoolyard report card that I have printed off in my classroom at all times during this unit.  We will grade the school on the school grounds and then later come back and relate this to this project.  Students will be completing all of the work in school, so the lack of internet access at home will not be a problem.
  

• Parent Permission Denied - If parents of certain students do not want their children to participate in the wiki, online guest speakers, online projects, or the online learning circles, other projects that do not involve the online part will be given.  The projects for the students will still be given, but they will just not be posted online.  For the wikis, learning circles, and guest speakers, the student will be given news articles that they will have to read and summarize and create a project with instead of completing the online work.  Another option is for the students to complete the alternate assignment (in the next bullet) if the project does not work.

• Other Schools Not Participating - Much of the project can still be completed even if other classes do not become involved, but it will just not be as powerful.  The alternate assignment may be to complete the calculator and still participate with the Excel graph and make a class wiki.  The students would then complete the schoolyard report card.  Finally, the students would still create a letter to the principal, but it would instead be based off of what they learned from the schoolyard report card and the ways that we can change the school grounds.

• Snow Days or other Unforeseen Days Off - The assignment would be pushed back to the next day available.
  

This page was created by Zachary Jones

Last Updated July 20, 2010