San Diego Teacher Residency Program Year 1
Teaching Examples
CLIMATE CHANGE DEMONSTRATION
In this lesson, The Heart of the Matter: Climate Change, students watched "Climate change: Earth's giant game of Tetris" by Joss Fong from TED-Ed. To launch the lesson, students were shown two images of the same location taken at different times. The earlier photo had significantly more ice. After listening to their noticings and wonderings, the students watched the video. At their tables, students came up with a summary, or Heart of the Matter, statement for the video.
This clip captures the end of the lesson where we, as a class, both summarize and visualize what we learned. Using a student as a model for Earth, the students articulated human-led activities that lead to a rise in atmospheric greenhouse gas. This demonstration allowed students to identify the link between greenhouse gas and rising temperature on Earth in a fun way. |
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INDEPENDENT AND DEPENDENT VARIABLES DEMONSTRATION
Prior to this lesson, the students conducted an experiment involving the places on campus that they believed would produce the most mold growth on a piece of bread when the two came in contact. Over time, the students documented the change in their bread's appearance. The experiment served as an anchor into our study of the characteristics of living things as well as the domains of life.
To spark curiosity and introduce the idea of independent and dependent variables in experiments, I performed a demonstration involving variable amounts of baking soda being put into equal amounts of distilled vinegar. The students articulated what they anticipated would change as a result of increasing the amount of baking soda (the independent variable) in the reaction. At the end of the lesson, the students were asked to articulate the independent and dependent variables of their aforementioned experiments involving bread. |
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Student Work Examples
PERIODIC TABLE OF ELEMENTS RESEARCH POSTER
This year's Model United Nations Trade War projected served as a launching pad for this mini-project. In MUN Trade War, students pick different countries. Different resources, such as iron and wood, are made available and are used to create institutions and trade with other nations. Adapted from Nettlehorst's 8th Grade Science, the project introduced students to an element from the Periodic Table. The students researched their element's physical and chemical properties, interesting facts, and also articulated their element's importance to the world. The students designed their posters on Canva and did Paseo-style presentations. Student work samples and the rubric are featured below.
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IT'S POPPIN' - MODELING WATER'S SPECIFIC HEAT
I launched a series of lessons about water's specific heat with a demo. This demo involved two balloons, one filled with water and one without. I held both balloons over an open flame. In groups, I asked the tables to come up with a model and an explanation for what they saw. Later in the week, we learned about the specific heat of water, which gave the students a specific scientific name for the phenomenon that they were witnessing.
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