Science - Conservation of Energy and Resources
Grade 5
During my placement in grade five I completed a full science unit on Conservation of Energy and Resources.
Based off of the curriculum expectations and big ideas for the unit I knew that at the end students should be able to understand and explain that:
Together the students and I explored all of these topics in depth, while making real world connections!
Accounting for learning diversity
*As with all of my units I kept in mind who my learners were, what their abilities and needs consisted of, and I tried to develop lesson plans that were inclusive of all learning styles and levels as often as possible.
Below I discuss a little about assessment FOR, OF, and AS learning within my grade 5 science unit.
Based off of the curriculum expectations and big ideas for the unit I knew that at the end students should be able to understand and explain that:
- energy sources are either renewable or non-renewable
- energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it can only be transformed
- choices about using energy and resources have both immediate and long-term impacts
- conservation is one way of reducing the impacts of using energy and resources
Together the students and I explored all of these topics in depth, while making real world connections!
Accounting for learning diversity
*As with all of my units I kept in mind who my learners were, what their abilities and needs consisted of, and I tried to develop lesson plans that were inclusive of all learning styles and levels as often as possible.
- Some of my students in this particular class were reading at a grade 3 level, so I tried to include as much group discussion about the information as possible coupled with hands on activities and visual aids
- Another student required all copies of his work to be printed on large yellow paper blown up to 134%, so I was careful to select materials that could easily transferred to this paper whenever necessary, and to include a lot of auditory aids for them
Below I discuss a little about assessment FOR, OF, and AS learning within my grade 5 science unit.
Assessment FOR learning:
To help me develop an understanding of where the students were at with their knowledge of the topic I spent the first lesson discussing what they thought the words energy, conservation, and renewable and non-renewable resources meant and what they could tell me about each. We wrote down on chart paper words or pieces of information they felt were suitable to explain what they knew about each of these (with their name beside each piece of information). This allowed me to see where a lot of misconceptions or confusion came from on the topic of conservation of energy.
To help me develop an understanding of where the students were at with their knowledge of the topic I spent the first lesson discussing what they thought the words energy, conservation, and renewable and non-renewable resources meant and what they could tell me about each. We wrote down on chart paper words or pieces of information they felt were suitable to explain what they knew about each of these (with their name beside each piece of information). This allowed me to see where a lot of misconceptions or confusion came from on the topic of conservation of energy.
Assessment OF learning:
Throughout the unit I took anecdotal notes every class during the students work time or immediately after to ensure I was making adjustments to each and every lesson to meet the needs of all my learners. I made sure to watch and listen closely to the students while they worked and tried to develop activities and classwork for them to complete that would give me a good idea of where they were at with their understanding throughout the unit.
Any tasks that were completed during the unit weren't given a mark, but instead I would give descriptive feedback and go over the work with them. When I noticed that many of them were having difficulty with a specific concept I would try to find a way to approach it in a new way that would hopefully help develop a deeper understanding.
An example from this science unit involved understanding the difference between renewable and non-renewable sources of energy. Many students I found were mixing the two up after a few discussions and activities to no-avail. I decided to do a full class hands-on activity where the students were divided into two teams.
Throughout the unit I took anecdotal notes every class during the students work time or immediately after to ensure I was making adjustments to each and every lesson to meet the needs of all my learners. I made sure to watch and listen closely to the students while they worked and tried to develop activities and classwork for them to complete that would give me a good idea of where they were at with their understanding throughout the unit.
Any tasks that were completed during the unit weren't given a mark, but instead I would give descriptive feedback and go over the work with them. When I noticed that many of them were having difficulty with a specific concept I would try to find a way to approach it in a new way that would hopefully help develop a deeper understanding.
An example from this science unit involved understanding the difference between renewable and non-renewable sources of energy. Many students I found were mixing the two up after a few discussions and activities to no-avail. I decided to do a full class hands-on activity where the students were divided into two teams.
- Each team was given a bundle of Popsicle sticks and were shown where the starting line was.
- They had to place their Popsicle sticks down end to end and the goal was to reach the other side of the room the fastest.
- Team A was allowed to put down all of their sticks right away as fast as they could, but once they were all gone they weren't allowed to pick up old ones.
- Team B could lay down only 3 Popsicle sticks at a time but they had to count to 3 steamboats before they could lay down their next three. When they ran out they could then begin collecting Popsicle sticks from the beginning of their line to lie down.
Assessment AS learning:
I feel that creativity is a wonderful catalyst for great ideas to sprout out of young minds and I wanted to keep this in mind when I was creating my assessment AS learning task for my students to wrap up this conservation of energy and resources unit.
For their final task I asked them to come up with an idea for a device that would help save energy and resources on earth. To help them develop their device or piece of technology they were given a booklet that I created which asked them various questions about their device, what resources would it be made from, which sources of energy would it need to run effectively, were they renewable or non-renewable etc., and what would the impacts be on our environment and our society if it were mass produced?
They were then asked to draw a detailed picture of their creation. While the students were working on this assignment over a period of a few days I was able to go around and listen to their explanations and ask questions about their devices. The students were given an outline of what each question would be marked out of and what I would be looking for with each one.
I feel that creativity is a wonderful catalyst for great ideas to sprout out of young minds and I wanted to keep this in mind when I was creating my assessment AS learning task for my students to wrap up this conservation of energy and resources unit.
For their final task I asked them to come up with an idea for a device that would help save energy and resources on earth. To help them develop their device or piece of technology they were given a booklet that I created which asked them various questions about their device, what resources would it be made from, which sources of energy would it need to run effectively, were they renewable or non-renewable etc., and what would the impacts be on our environment and our society if it were mass produced?
They were then asked to draw a detailed picture of their creation. While the students were working on this assignment over a period of a few days I was able to go around and listen to their explanations and ask questions about their devices. The students were given an outline of what each question would be marked out of and what I would be looking for with each one.