Pond Life, EWW!

My plan for teaching is related to the lesson plan that I am creating for my science class. In my lesson I am planning to incorporate virtual pond dip. The students will be learning about microorganisms, their environments, and their characteristics. The beginning of the lesson will be an introduction to microorganisms where the students will see how yeast reacts to warm water and fills up a balloon. After they have a basic experience with a microorganism, we will explore them more in depth by identifying them using virtual pond dip. This will allow all students to see the microorganisms blown up and to learn specific information about the organisms found in a pond. They will complete a graphic organizer on the computer that displays the information they learn on at least four of the microorganisms and a hand written venn diagram that compares what they learned about single-celled and multi-celled microorganisms.

1. What is the content you will be focusing on in your science activity? Using Virtual Pond, student will discover the many shapes and sizes of microorganisms that live in pond water. They will list and identify characteristics of the microorganisms using a graphic organizer. This objective meets the state core standard for science in sixth grade that states, "Examine and illustrate size, shape, and structure of organisms found in an environment such as pond water. " This is standard 5, Objective 1, indicator a. Indicator b will also be addressed because it focuses on common characteristics that will be shown in the venn diagram.
2. What is the pedagogy you will be using and why is it a good fit with the content? To teach this lesson I will be using the format of an inquiry lesson plan. Students will be directly instructed on how to arrive at the virtual pond dip website and will directly learn the directions for the yeast experiment, but they will be let loose to explore the pond dip website so that they can build their own knowledge. This will allow them to discover and create opinions about similarities and differences and also gives them a chance to share what they learn and come up with hypothesis about microorganisms as a class.
   
3. What is the technology you'll be using and why is it a good fit with the content and pedagogy? Virtual pond dip is the technology that I plan to use and I plan to use it because it gives every student access to the information. Rather than using a standard microscope that students struggle to focus, they can see the microorganisms in large size and have readily available descriptions for all of them without searching through tons of books. The other reason I chose virtual pond dip has to do with the season that we are in. Most ponds are cold or frozen at this point in the year and most microorganisms will be dormant or dead right now. This allows me to teach about microorganisms when and where I want.

This is my plan and I hope it goes well. We'll see how user friendly voicethread will be.

Touring Asia

* What is the content you’ll be using in your lesson?

I plan to use the third grade social studies core to teach this lesson. I will meet the following standard. Standard 1- Students will understand how geography influences community location and development.
Objective 1 Determine the relationships between human settlement and geography.
1. Identify the geographic features common to areas where human settlements exist.
2. Use map features to make logical inferences and describe relationships between human settlement and physical geography (e.g. population density in relation to latitude, cities' proximity to water, utilization of natural resources).
3. Compare the shapes and purposes of natural and human-made boundaries of cities, counties and states.

* What is the pedagogy you’ll be using and why is it a good fit with the content?

I will be using a tour through google earth to teach the lesson of geographic features where people settle. I will have the students participate in short activities where they list the commonalities and differences of the places that I visited this summer. What I hope the students notice is the water near all of the states and countries. I want to show actual photographs of the places that I visited this summer so that they become real for the students. I think it is important for them to understand that these places are not so foreign. It's a good fit with the content because the students will be able to see the land features from an arial view.

* What is the technology you’ll be using and why is it a good fit with the content and pedagogy?

The technology is the use of google earth for the tour. I will have the students view most of the maps from a projector and then explore in groups on the computers. This matches because I want the class as a group to make these discoveries instead of me just pointing it out to them.

Have fun with your googling this week everyone. I know I will. For my table scroll down, I cannot seem to get it to show up any higher than it is.

Location	Activity	Google Earth Content
Salt Lake, Utah	Make a passport for our travels. Create a stamp that you think Utah would use to represent their land. http://www.slc.k12.ut.us/schools/elementary/images/newman.jpg	Street view, 3-d buildings
Southfield, Michigan	Observe the borders of Michigan and Canada, why do you think they are the way they are? Would you have made them different? http://www.epitomephotos.com/thumbnails/2008June18_29_1.jpg	Borders and labels
San Diego, California	With westward expansion, why do you think so many people chose to live in California? Which land form have we seen in all of these places? http://www.foreclosureconnections.com/images/San-Diego-ca.jpg	Terrain, street view
Thailand	Using the kids’ culturegrams, find out what types of land and jobs the people can hold there. Are these similar to what we do in Utah? http://www.earthexpeditions.org/field_expeditions/thailand/images/thailand4-full.jpg	Borders and labels
Singapore	n size, how does Singapore compare to the United States? Why do you think people live here? http://www.shangri-la.com/en/property/singapore/shangrila	3-d buildings
Hong Hong, China	Hong Kong has mountains and a peninsula, which other areas had these features? Why do people value these? http://www.goway.com/asia/hongkong/hk_img/hong-kong2.jpg	Street view, 3-d buildings
Puerto Rico	Some people call Puerto Rico the 51st state. Do you think it could be part of the United States? List reasons why you think it should be, or why you think it should not. http://caribbean-vacationspots.com/content_images/1/Puerto Rico.jpg	Roads, terrain
Antigua	How does a country in the ocean have a desert climate? Do you think that it would affect the amount of people who live there? http://www.hotelrentalgroup.com/images/16301.jpg	Terrain roads
	I am going to use a polygon that connects all of the locations, showing the way in which I will be traveling around the world this summer.