Making Space for Change

 

🌲 Project Based Learning 🌲

Over our four-week science block the first grade students worked with community members and planning officials to help to create an environmentally sustainable redesign of a vacant community space in a local neighborhood.  The objective was to answer the following question: How can we redesign a public space to make it more environmentally sustainable?  What aspects do we need to consider when designing a space?  Some questions to take into consideration are:  Who will this space be used by? Who uses it now?  How will it affect the plants, animals and current habitat?  What are the needs of the community?  How will it be funded?

The students will spend 4 weeks on this project.  During that time they will visit the space and then meet with local planners and residents who will provide them with the context, needs, resources, and constraints of transforming the space into a useable, accessible open space, multi-use area for the community.  The students will then engage in discussions, asked informative questions, and finally provide feedback and offer up ideas to the community for the spaces new use.   They will present their hand drawn picture ideas to community members and local planners, parents, and the school as their final project submission.  

First Graders will meet the following Science and Engineering Practices standards according to the CA state standards in the science curriculum.   The following is taken from the Next Generation Science Standards for California Department of Education(2013).

Constructing Explanations and Designing Solutions

Constructing explanations and designing solutions in K–2 builds on prior experiences and progresses to the use of evidence and ideas in constructing evidence-based accounts of natural phenomena and designing solutions. 

• Make observations (firsthand or from media) to construct an evidence-based account for natural phenomena. (1-LS3-1)
• Use materials to design a device that solves a specific problem or a solution to a specific problem. (1-LS1-1)

Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information

Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information in K–2 builds on prior experiences and uses observations and texts to communicate new information.

• Read grade-appropriate texts and use media to obtain scientific information to determine patterns in the natural world. (1-LS1-2)

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🌲 Monitoring Student Projects 🌲

The students will be evaluated based off the following rubric and criteria:

Making Space for Change: First Grade Rubric

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🌲 Creating A Strategy for Feedback 🌲

This project is meant to take place over the course of a four-week science block.  I will provide feedback to students on a bi-weekly basis; each Monday and Friday throughout the block period (8 check-in times total), I will meet one on one with each student and look over their journals to make sure the students are demonstrating their learning and recording their work in their journals.  I will also use formative assessments to check in daily to see of students are understanding what they have learned.   I will record their progress on a spreadsheet.  Each week the students will also draw a picture of what they have worked on that week:

Week 1:  surveying the site

Week 2: community meeting and input

Week 3: researching and designing a plan

Week 4: presenting their work

I will give students feedback through a checklist that will be posted in the front of the classroom.  As students complete tasks, they will check off each task as they go.  We will review the chart each day as a whole class each morning as a part of our schedule review and morning routine.  Students will receive a red, yellow, or green sticker to indicate where they are in their weekly project submissions, color will correspond with the rubric.  I will also use the app Remind to communicate with parents on a weekly basis to make sure they are aware of their child's progress and progression with their work and help keep their child stay on task.

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References:

PBLWorks. (gleaned from the internet on November 16, 2019).  Buck Institute for Education.   Making Space for Change.  https://my.pblworks.org/project/making-space-change

Stenger, Marianne.  (2014).  Edutopia.  5 Research-Based Tips for Providing Students with Meaningful Feedback.  https://www.edutopia.org/blog/tips-providing-students-meaningful-feedback-marianne-stenger

California Department of Education.  (2013).  Next Generation Science Standards for California Public Schools.  https://www.cde.ca.gov/pd/ca/sc/ngssstandards.asp

Pictures from google or from my photo album.