Multidimensional Unit

Jeremy Nibogie

Overview of Multidimensional Unit

Grade Level: 7-9

Language and Level: English, intermediate

Field of Experience: Saving the Environment

Topics to be Developed:

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Cleaning our Water

Saving our Forests

Experiential Goal: At the end of the Unit, the students will be able to create a public awareness poster or record a radio/television public service announcement that will be presented as part of a Saving the Environment Fair.

Steps to Follow to achieve the goal:

1. Discuss the different environment problems around the world, start local (own house) and progress to global (international).

2. Role-play how you would take an active role in saving the environment.

3. Construct something out of Reusable things

4. Visit recycling plant

5. Write a letter to Canada’s Minister of Environment in support of saving Canada’s forests

6. Perform an experiment of purifying water

7. Discuss what another country has done to do their part in saving the Environment

8. View examples of Public awareness posters and recorded radio/ television public service announcements

9. Create a public awareness poster or record a radio/television public service announcement

10. Reflection on the unit. Peer and self-evaluation

Objectives

Communicative/ Experiential

1. Ask questions, during the trip to the Recycling plant

2. Perform an experiment to Purify Water

3. Construct something out of Reusable things.

4. View and analyse the communicative techniques used in public service announcements

Cultural

1. Discuss the different environment problems around the world, starting with community and work towards globally.

2. Discuss what other countries have done to do their part in saving the Environment.

Language

1. Develop questions using key interrogatory phrases. (Who, what, how, etc)

2. Develop vocabulary associated with: recycling and other environmental issues; such as water and forest preservation.

General Language Education

1. Reflect on the unit

2. View examples of Public awareness posters and recorded radio/ television public service announcements and discuss the techniques they used.

3. Predicting the answers to questions for the trip to the Recycling Plant.

4. Adopt the proper form of producing a letter.

5. Rehearsing the role play before performing it.

6. Expressing own experiences

Lesson Plans

Grade Level: 7-9 Language: English Length of class:

60 mins.

Field of Experience: Saving the Environment Lesson: Four

Subject to be developed: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Materials:

Teacher Students

-notebook

-pen/ pencil

Activity: Visit recycling plant

Steps to Follow:

Teacher Students

-Introduce activity and say that we will be

visiting a Recycling plant

(5 minutes)

-Come up with questions that they want to find out about the Recycling plant

(20 minutes)

-Discuss the questions

(15 minutes)

-Predict some of the answers to the questions

(10 minutes)

-Outline their trip that they will be going on

(5 minutes)

-Decide who will be asking which questions

(5 minutes)

-The next day the class visits the Recycling centre

-The next class the class will discuss the answers to the questions and see if their predictions were right.

Grade Level: 7-9 Language: English Length of class: 60 mins.

Field of Experience: Saving the Environment Lesson: Six

Subject to be developed: Cleaning our Water

Materials:

-Hand out of the experiment -"bad" water

- measuring cup

- beaker

- heating plate

- acid test strip

- glass

Activity: Perform an experiment of purifying water

Steps to Follow:

- Brainstorm ways how our water is polluted

(10 minutes)

-Discuss with the students other means of

purifying water

(10 minutes)

-give hand-out to every student

(3 minutes)

-outline the possible risks involved

(5 minutes)

-Put student into pairs

(2 minutes)

Experiment

-Fill beaker with three cups of water

-Help students if they have problems -Test water for Acid

-put beaker on hot plate

-let water boil for five minutes

-take beaker of hot plate and let cool for five minutes

-Test water for Acid

-Drink

(30 minutes)

Assessment

I decided to assess is the final Experiential Goal. The students task was to create a public awareness poster or record a radio/television public service announcement. These will be presented as part of a Saving the Environment Fair that will take place at the end of the Unit. The posters or announcements will be done in groups of three. The whole Experiential goal is out of 100 marks. The100 marks come from: Self/ Group Evaluation, Peer Evaluation, and Teacher Evaluation. The marking scheme can be found on the following page.

Each person will fill out a Self Evaluation out of 15. The members of the group will all fill out a Group Evaluation on each other out of 15. There will be two fill out on each student, since the groups are three people. The total will be out of 30 marks and then divided by two to get the individuals mark out of 15. Every student in the class will fill out a Peer Evaluation for each other. The totals will all be added together and given an average. This will be out of 30 marks. The teacher will then fill out the Teacher Evaluation, which is out of 40 marks.

The method of assessment is used is called rubric. This method outlines certain criteria of how the students will be marked. It acts as a guide for the students, so they will not get any surprises once they have completed their assignments.

I felt that this way of assessing the final Experiential goal would be the best way. The teacher should have the most say in what mark the students should receive. The student themselves should have the opportunity to evaluate themselves because they would get to see first hand what they had to do to get a better mark. The chance to have peer evaluations are also very valuable because it gives the students a chance to see what their fellow classmates feel about their work. The values for Peer Evaluation would be averaged out to deter favouritism. A sheet would be handed out to each student that would allow them to comment on how to improve this project and what they like/ disliked about it.

Resources

Making It Happen

Wenzlaff, Terri L, Fager, Jennifer J, Coleman, Marta J; (1999): What is a Rubric? Do Practitioners and the Literature Agree?. Contemporary Education, Vol. 70, Issue 4, p41.

www.ec.gc.ca

www.stemnet.nf.ca

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