BASIC PRODUCTIVITY TOOLS: SPREADSHEETS

Name: Hannah Mattson

Grade Level: 9
Content Area: Biology
Basic Productivity Tool Used: Google Sheets
Standards Addressed:
SB5. Students will evaluate the role of natural selection in the development of the
theory of evolution.
d. Relate natural selection to changes in organisms.
Blooms Level of Critical Thinking:
Remembering Understanding Applying Analyzing Evaluating Creating
Description of how to implement in the class:
The basic productivity tool, google sheets, will be implemented in this class through a
lesson about natural selection. The class will be divided into four different groups that
are assigned to four different colored table clothes or habitats. Each habitat has
many different colored squares of construction paper that represent mice with
different colored fur. Each person in the group is assigned a task and one person is a
hawk whose job is to hunt the mice in the certain habitat. Another student will be
the recorder who will have access to a pre-made set of charts in a google
spreadsheet where students will record the colors of mice that died/survived
immediately as they collect it. The class will then have access to every groups data
on that one tab in order to compare for evaluation and analysis in the following
discussion. This will allow students immediate access that they can refer to at any
time. It is a very fast and efficient method of data collection for the science classroom
and they will immediately be able to draw upon patterns that can be seen upon the
survival rate of different colored mice in different colored habitats.
Level of Technology Implementation (LoTi): LoTi level 4 best describes this
activity because students are using technology that is central to classroom
instruction. The students are using the technology to report data collaboratively and
evaluate results together. They also are able to have access to the results and
conclusions found from any device that has online access at anytime after the
activity for review.
Description of the sample spreadsheet and graph/chart provided *: I have
provided a picture of a template of what the students would see when they access
the link to the spreadsheet to fill in the data. There are four data charts listed (one for
each group) and as each group collects the data of the colors of fur in the surviving
mice that remain in the environment, the students will input it immediately. All of
them would be able to see all of the changes as they are being made. They can do
this via computer, tablet, or mobile phone so there are many options to make this
work in many different classrooms.
Other comments about your proposed spreadsheet/graph/chart activity: In a
lot of classrooms, the teacher would call each group one at a time to report the data
to him or her while she or he writes on the board or projector. This method is much
more time costly and takes away from the time for the discussion of the
interpretation of the results (which should be the purpose).
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