The TeachNet Project sponsored with major funding by the AT&T Learning Network

seeks to improve student achievement by providing training, grants, networking and resource sharing to teachers at four of the Teachers Network affiliates nationwide.

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My Science Fair

My Science Fair

How it works:

Technology

  • Students will become proficient at Web Based research as it relates to the scientific method.
  • Students will be able to produce basic word processing documents to use on a science board presentation.
  • Students will use photography, graphing and charting software, and drawings to produce illustrations of the scientific method and its processes.

Academic

  • Students will be able to follow multi-step instructions to produce a science fair project.
  • Students will formulate a testable question.
  • Students will use research techniques to answer questions about a topic.
  • Students will be able to read, comprehend, and write using summary techniques about a chosen topic.
  • Students will be able to present their acquired knowledge about the topic in an oral presentation to the class and to the public.
  • Students will  engage in scientific investigation.

 

Assessment:

 Assessment is ongoing through bi-weekly conferencing with the students. In addition the following rubrics were used to assess student work.

Standards:

Language Arts

  • Reading Comprehension

  • Evaluate new information and hypotheses by testing them against known information and ideas

  • Compare and contrast information on the same topic after reading several passages or articles.

  • Follow multiple-step instructions in a basic technical manual (e.g., how to use computer commands or video games).

 Writing Strategies

  • Select a focus, an organizational structure, and a point of view based upon purpose, audience, length, and format requirements.
  • Locate information in reference texts by using organizational features (e.g., prefaces, appendixes).
  • Use various reference materials (e.g., dictionary, thesaurus, card catalog, encyclopedia, online information) as an aid to writing.
     

 Writing Applications

  • Write information reports:

  • Frame a central question about an issue or situation.

  • Include facts and details for focus.

  • Draw from more than one source of information (e.g., speakers, books, newspapers, other media sources)

Listening and Speaking Strategies

Organization and Delivery of Oral Communication
 

  • Present effective introductions and conclusions that guide and inform the listener's understanding of important ideas and evidence.

  • Use traditional structures for conveying information (e.g., cause and effect, similarity and difference, and posing and answering a question).

  • Emphasize points in ways that help the listener or viewer to follow important ideas and concepts.

  • Use details, examples, anecdotes, or experiences to explain or clarify information.Use volume, pitch, phrasing, pace, modulation, and gestures appropriately to enhance meaning.

 Speaking Applications

  • Make informational presentations:

  • Frame a key question

  • Include facts and details that help listeners to focus.

  • Incorporate more than one source of information (e.g., speakers, books, newspapers, television or radio reports).

  • Differentiate observation from inference (interpretation) and know scientists' explanations come partly from what they observe and partly from how they interpret their observations.

  • Formulate and justify predictions based on cause-and-effect relationships.

  • Conduct multiple trials to test a prediction and draw conclusions about the relationships between predictions and results.

Language Arts Standards Fifth Grade 

Listening and Speaking Strategies

  • Select a focus, organizational structure, and point of view for an oral presentation.

  • Clarify and support spoken ideas with evidence and examples.

  • Engage the audience with appropriate verbal cues, facial expressions, and gestures.

  • Analyze media as sources for information, entertainment, persuasion, interpretation of events, and transmission of culture.

Speaking Applications

  • Deliver informative presentations about an important idea, issue, or event by the following means:

  •  Frame questions to direct the investigation.

  • Establish a controlling idea or topic.

  • Develop the topic with simple facts, details, examples, and explanations

Reading Comprehension

  • Draw inferences, conclusions, or generalizations about text and support them with textual evidence and prior knowledge.

Writing Strategies

Research and Technology
 

  • Use organizational features of printed text (e.g., citations, end notes, bibliographic references) to locate relevant information.
  • Create simple documents by using electronic media and employing organizational features (e.g., passwords, entry and pull-down menus, word searches, the thesaurus, spell checks).
  • Use a thesaurus to identify alternative word choices and meaning

Word Recognition
 

  • Read aloud narrative and expository text fluently and accurately and with appropriate pacing, intonation, and expression.
  • Vocabulary and Concept Development
  • Use word origins to determine the meaning of unknown words.
  • Understand and explain frequently used synonyms, antonyms, and homographs.
  • Know abstract, derived roots and affixes from Greek and Latin and use this knowledge to analyze the meaning of complex words (e.g., controversial).
  • Understand and explain the figurative and metaphorical use of words in context.

Reading Comprehension (Focus on Informational Materials)

  • Structural Features of Informational Materials
  • Understand how text features (e.g., format, graphics, sequence, diagrams, illustrations, charts, maps) make information accessible and usable.
  • Analyze text that is organized in sequential or chronological order.

Comprehension and Analysis of Grade-Level-Appropriate Text
 

  • Discern main ideas and concepts presented in texts, identifying and assessing evidence that supports those ideas.
  • Draw inferences, conclusions, or generalizations about text and support them with textual evidence and prior knowledge.

Expository Critique

  • Distinguish facts, supported inferences, and opinions in text.

Writing Strategies

  • Organization and Focus
  • Create multiple-paragraph narrative compositions:
  • Establish and develop a situation or plot.
  • Describe the setting.
  • Present an ending.

Create multiple-paragraph expository compositions:

  • Establish a topic, important ideas, or events in sequence or chronological order.
  • Provide details and transitional expressions that link one paragraph to another in a clear line of thought.
  • Offer a concluding paragraph that summarizes important ideas and details.

Research and Technology

  • Use organizational features of printed text (e.g., citations, end notes, bibliographic references) to locate relevant information.
  • Create simple documents by using electronic media and employing organizational features (e.g., passwords, entry and pull-down menus, word searches, the thesaurus, spell checks).
  • Use a thesaurus to identify alternative word choices and meanings.

Evaluation and Revision

  • Edit and revise manuscripts to improve the meaning and focus of writing by adding, deleting, consolidating, clarifying, and rearranging words and sentences.

Writing Applications

  • Write research reports about important ideas, issues, or events by using the following guidelines:
  • Frame questions that direct the investigation.
  • Establish a controlling idea or topic.
  • Develop the topic with simple facts, details, examples, and explanations.

Science Standards Fifth Grade

Investigation and Experimentation

  • Develop a testable question

  • Plan and conduct a simple investigation based on a student-developed question  and write instructions others can follow to carry out the procedure.

  • Identify the dependent and controlled variables in an investigation

  •  Identify a single independent variable in a scientific investigation and explain  how this variable can be used to collect information to answer a question about the results of the experiment.

Software or Materials Used:

Software used was Microsoft Office, specifically Microsoft Word. The Internet was also required and a printer. Other materials included a presentation board for each student and the students were required to get their own materials for their project.

Keywords: 

Science, Science Fair, Science Project, science fair project pictures

The Students: 

Participants were all fourth and fifth grade students at our school, except one class of fourth graders for whom the project was optional (Below Basic and Far Below Basic learners). The participants  included resource students, GATE students, and students of our general demographic make up which includes 63.5% Hispanic, 28.5% white, 3.7 % black, 2.1% Asian, 1.0% American Indian, 0.7% Filipino, and 0.5% Pacific Islander. The total number of students participating was approximately 170.

Overall Value:

Not only does this project give students the opportunity to pursue something of their own interest but also provides them the opportunity to use internet research, word processing, and oral presentation skills. It is easily adaptable for all students of all levels. An especially important feature is letting students choose their own paths of scientific exploration. What we found was that by allowing them this freedom and exploration, there were many science standards addressed. The children developed pride and self confidence in their work.

Details:

Subject Area:  Science

 Second Subject Area :  Language Arts, Oral Presentation

Starting Grade Level: 4

Ending Grade Level: 12

Tips for the Teacher:

  • It is really important to have a color printer available since Word Art is all about color and design choices.
  • Have lots of science project books available in addition to the website list.
  • I ordered 200 science boards and sold them for $3 a piece to the students rather than having them be responsible for the purchase of them themselves. This avoided two problems: 1. the cost of the boards was cheaper for the kids, 2. We only have one store that sells them and with 200 children needing them I did not want the store to run out.

 



Name of Project Designer

Karen J. Hamner

Karen Hamner is in her 5th year at La Honda Elementary school in Lompoc, CA, a small agrarian community on the central coast. This is her second year with a 4/5 combination class. She enjoys having both grade levels since she has fun with both curriculums.  She is the only GATE certified teacher at her site and has a GATE cluster of both 4th and 5th graders. Karen is also the technology coach for her site and a Write From the Beginning (the LUSD adopted writing program) trainer.
She received her bachelor's degree from UCSB and both her masters and teaching credential from Chapman University.

School Name

La Honda Elementary School

 

Email addresses:

hamnerk@lompoc.k12.ca.us

kjhamner@netscape.net