ND Curriculum Initiative

Subject & Standards

Science: 5. Earth and Space Science. 6. Science and Technology.

Needs Assessment/Rational

Students live in a world of technology that advances and changes daily. In the news they hear stories about traveling to Mars and returning to the moon. They hear about contests to be the first private company to produce a ship that can fly to space and return to the ground safely. In their lifetime some of them may be fortunate enough to take rides to outer space. Most students accept these things as a part of the world in which they live. Yet, they do not understand the basic concepts of rockets. They are not aware of how a rocket moves or what conditions affect the how far or high rockets can fly.A hands on project to research, design, build,and launch water rockets will help them to gain an understanding of the technology and science that make space exploration possible.

Understandings & Goals

Enduring Understanding: 1. Students will understand how the phases of the moon affect the tides. 2. Students will understand how to locate scientific information on the internet. 3. Students will understand the scientific method.
Goal(s): 1.Students will understand that the moon affects the tides.  2. Students will understand the scientific method.  3. Students will become proficient in finding science information on the internet. 4. Students will be able to explain and present their conclusions.

Questions Answered

Essential questions: 1. How do the phases of the moon affect the ocean tides? 2. Where can I find this information? 3. How can I graph scientific information on a computer?
Objectives: 1. Students will learn how to locate scientific information on the web. 2. Students will collect scientific data and record it on a table. 3. Students will make a computer generated line graph from the data table. 4. Students will draw conclusions from the data about tides.

Assessment

What quiz and test items (e.g. simple content-focused questions that require a single, best answer) will provide evidence of understanding?
What academic prompts (e.g. open-ended questions or problems that require students to think critically and then to prepare a response / product / performance) will provide evidence of understanding?   
Student responses to the hypothesis step of the scientific method and to the conclusion step of the scientific method will provide evidence of understanding.
What performance tasks and projects (e.g. complex challenges that are authentic, mirror the real world and require a performance or product) will you include that will provide evidence of student understanding?
1. Students will successfully locate tidal information on the internet.  2.  Students will enter data into a table in Excel.  3. Students will generate a graph in Excel from their tables.  4. Students will share the information with classmates with a PowerPoint presentation.
What other evidence (e.g. observations, work samples, dialogues, student self-assessment) of understanding will you collect?
1. Students will show me their completed spreadsheets on the computer monitor.  2. Observation of students explanations during their PowerPoint presentatins.

Instructional Strategies

The scientific method lends itself to the inquiry-based strategy of learning. We discuss ocean tides in Earth Science. Allowing students to make a hypothesis about how the moon phases affect the tides, testing or researching the topic, and then making a conclusion after comparing their hypothesis to the results is a great way to teach them to explore things around them.Students will use the project-based strategy to make a table and a graph in Excel. Students will present their findings to the class. It will be necessary for them to defend and support their hypothesis and the conclusions they make.