Lesson Planning

Waynesburg University
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Pennsylvania Academic Standard(s) addressed during this lesson:
(Provide Standard number and statement)

4.6.4.A Understand that living things are dependent on nonliving things in the environment for survival.
1.2.5.B Use and understand a variety of media and evaluate the quality of material produced.

Lesson Objective(s)
(Stated in observable and measurable terms)

Students will research an animal, including its position within a food chain, and create a Mashtab media poster to share findings..

Assessment Plan
(What will be done to determine if lesson objectives have been met?)

Students will individually create and present a Mashtab poster that fulfills the lesson objective.

Materials:
In classroom: Projector.
In computer lab: One computer per student, research sharing page

Inclusion Techniques for Students with Special Needs:

Assistance finding pictures and websites, placing them on page.

Enrichment Techniques:

Openness of activity allows great variance in research, organization, and presenting results.

Lesson Differentiation (What modifications/accommodations will be made to ensure that ALL students have access to and are able
to participate in the lesson):
Open activity, assistance provided to those who need it, several options in time to complete.

Lesson Presentation
Introduction/Motivational Activities/Anticipatory Set:

Review meanings of food chain, food web, energy pyramid.

State that today we will be starting a brief research project on an animal, noting its place in a food chain.

Show example Mashtab (see week 7). Note that teachers sample displays a picture of the animal, three web pages, a very simple
piece of food chain that displays one thing the animal eats and one thing it is eaten by (if possible), and an embedded video. These are
the minimum requirements for the Mashtab.

Note that this will also be an opportunity to use resource evaluation (determining if a site is worth using or not). Provide students with a
research sharing page that requires them to record a sentence on why they chose each of their websites and movies, and one fact they
learned from each as theyre working.

Detailed Teaching Sequence:

(Provide sufficient detail that would enable a substitute to effectively present this lesson. Bulleted statements are preferred)

First, have students use an on-desktop or bookmarked link to http://middlespot.com/search.php, the combination Mashtab utility with
search engine. Students will log in and create a new Mashtab page named after their animal.
 Students will use the search engine and picture engine to find resources for their project. The wrench button allows them to take a
searched item and add it to their Mashtab.
Give students roughly 25 minutes to complete this. Early finishers should continue finding resources and pictures.

After their initial research, walk students through on how to select and embed a video from YouTube. (Ensure that YouTube safe search
has been implemented.)
Have students find a single video, choose the embed button on YouTube, copy the code, select Add and Embed Code in Mashtab,
and give students time to arrange their materials in an attractive and functional manner.

Roughly five minutes before the end of the lesson, all students will be prompted to quit so that the teacher may bring it up the following
day in the classroom (it will save automatically).
While working and before presenting the following day, the teacher will need to review each students to ensure all resources are
appropriate to share.

Guided Practice/Independent Practice/Assessment Activities

Development of Mashtab, quality of resources, organization, accuracy of food chain.

Students will present their Mashtab to the class the following day, offering a brief summary of each part and site. If the student has
produced several, they may pick their best one to share.

Rubric will assess the extent to which students have justified their sources, the quality of the sources, food chain accuracy, and overall
organization.

Closure:

Orally review vocabulary terms (sun, producer, primary consumer, secondary consumer, decomposer), food chains, food webs, and
energy pyramids. Continue prepping for end if unit.