Posted by David Wetzel
Project Based Learning in Science and Math
Project Based Learning is an instructional approach built upon authentic learning activities that engage student interest and motivation. These activities are designed to answer a question or solve a problem and generally reflect the types of learning and work people do in the everyday world outside the science or math classroom.
6 Steps to Creating a Project Based Learning Activity
The following steps are designed as a guide for creating a project based learning activity.
The order is flexible and designed to be rigid in nature to allow for individual methods and processes when develop a project.
Decide on the project’s focus or idea.
Two examples are:
- Create a design that proposes a solution for proposing a bike path in a community area and submit the proposal to a local planning agency. The proposal should include design, environmental impact, and estimated cost.
- Create a calendar to be sold to raise money for the 8th grade dance. Students determine on the cost of producing the calendar and how much the calendars should be sold for to make a profit. The profit will be used for the end of the year 8thgrade dance. Students must also create an advertising campaign to sell the calendars.
Develop a central driving question.
Two examples are:
- What is the shortest path for two students to take to meet each other when they are on opposite sides of the school?
- How much growth in population can the community’s water support?
Determine appropriate standards.
Aligned with appropriate national and district learning standards.
Determine how students will be assessed.
Project based learning assessments should include performance assessments or rubrics that measure each skill to be learned in the project. For example a rubric that assesses a student’s:
- Level of science or math content knowledge involved in the project
- How well specific math or science skills are required for the project are mastered
- How a student applied their knowledge gained from research and investigation
- Level of contribution to group effort, when specific tasks and jobs are assigned
Determine what products the students will create.
The following are some examples:
- Proposal – provided to the teacher describing the project’s investigation process
- Physical model – used to display the final result of solving the problem
- Poster – used to present the project’s processes or findings
- Sideshow - used to present the project’s processes or findings
- Video – used to present the project’s processes or findings
- Panel Discussion – hosted by a group or between groups to debate the pros and cons of a projects impact
- Multimedia Presentation – used to present the project’s processes or findings
- Journal – a record of the group’s or individual’s progress throughout the project
Decide what technology tools and web 2.0 tools will be used.
Some examples include:
- Slide Share – presentation of project’s processes and outcomes
- Glogster – interactive poster
- Wiki – used for display of final project and support group collaboration
- Flickr – used to collect photos for multimedia presentation or interactive poster
- Animoto – used to create a video of the project’s components for multimedia presentation or interactive poster
Following these six steps will make it much easier to create a project based learning activity for students, regardless of the students’ grade level or content being studied.
Sample Project Based Learning Ideas
Science Case Studies
Math Projects
Physical Science or Chemistry
Tennis Court Project
Posted by David Wetzel
Web-Based Learnng Centers
For a web-based learning to be truly effective it must be interactive. This means that it is not just a reformatted canned science lesson or math worksheets placed on the web.
The web-based activity is inquiry-based and incorporates the full features available on the web – interactivity between computer and student.
The learning activity must engage student critical thinking skills by using the inquiry process.
Scientific Inquiry: Web-Based Learning Centers
Web-based science and math learning centers are ideal for group inquiry-based activities using interactive online resources and in class supporting materials in designated stations.
These stations are designed to support as many learning styles as possible within the context of the learning center.
Web-based learning centers work with one or multiple computers; of course more computers are better.
Creating a web-based learning center stations for students requires the following setup:
- one or more computers
- hands-on/minds-on science investigations
- print resources
The best designed web-based learning centers in science and math focus on one specific scientific concept at a time, such as:
- five senses
- animal cells
- anatomy
- cloud types
- energy
- geometric shapes
- symmetry
- graphing
- equations
Sample web-based learning center using the Water Cycle include:
- One station containing books on the water cycle
- One or more computer station(s) with two or three predetermined interactive websites for students’ to research water cycle.
- One minds-on investigation station that allow students to visualize the water cycle in action and help answer questions they developed (developed prior to and during investigation)
- One hands-on/minds-on station that allow students to design a simple experiment to complete additional research
- One or more stations for analyzing findings
- One or more stations for preparation of presentation of findings using education technology tools
Before students begin the learning center, students determine questions they want answered regarding the water cycle.
Online Learning: Technology Based Resources
Select a concept and then find two or three web-based resources to support student interactivity with the concept.
There are many options to find resources and directories that support this effort, examples are:
Problem Based Learning in Science
Problem Based Learning in Math
Posted by David Wetzel
Science iPod Touch Apps
Science applications (Apps) for iPod Touch offer students and teachers excellent tools to help students spend more time learning science content in class and laboratory situations.
Although many Science Apps are loaded with ads and other distracting information, I have found several that are free of ads.
iPod Touch Science Apps
LabTimer - this is a count-up and count-down multi-timer with the following features:
- Four timers, individually configurable as count-up or alarming count-down
- Large display and buttons
- Display in Hours : Minutes : Seconds (limit above 1000 hours)
- Customizable text labels for each timer
- Small icons describing the state of all timers
- Disables iPod sleep, keeping your timer running and visible
ExoPlanet - a database of extrasolar planets. It contains details of all detected exo-planets as well as their host stars.
Students can easily search through the database and view pictures of the host star, visualizations of the planet’s orbits.
Correlation diagrams of various planet properties can be created on the fly.
Worlds Apart - a model of the solar system. Hand tuned for performance and realism, it uses hardware accelerated 3D graphics to give you a higher detailed, smoother and more accurate view of our planetary neighborhood. Prepare for a very different view of the planets than from any ordinary hand held planetarium.
USGS Seismic - this application parses an RSS feed from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) that provides data on recent earthquakes around the world.
It displays the location, date, and magnitude of each earthquake, along with a color-coded graphic that indicates the severity of the earthquake.
NASA - this an official NASA App that invites to discover to discover a wealth of NASA information. The NASA App collects, customizes and delivers an extensive selection of dynamically updated information, images
iFormulas - is a clean, simple, easy to use mathematical formula application. Provides basics to survive your Algebra, Calculus, Geometry or Trigonometry to support science investigations. It does not give you answers but provides an easy navigational guide.
Science Glossary - this is an extensive glossary of scientific terms and short biographies of key scientists. All definitions link to related terms and detailed science learning modules.
LabCal - this Laboratory Calculator is an utility to calculate the molarity, to convert gram and mole and to compute dilutions of stock solutions.
Promega - this App provides lots of great information for life science, including quick access to molecular biology calculators, technical tips, protocols, and multimedia presentations.
The calculators provide a range of functions essential to molecular biology experiments, including DNA and protein conversions, melting temperature, molarity and dilution calculations.
Topics include basic amplification techniques to real-time PCR, from simple cell-based assays to complex imaging techniques, and from protein expression to more involved protein interactions assays. Multimedia elements can also be easily accessed via a separate menu.
Features include:
- DNA, Protein, Tm, and Dilution Calculators
- Step-by-step protocols
- Illustrations and example data
- Extensive background information
- Animated movies demonstrating key techniques and cellular events
Mild EleMints - is an interactive Periodic Table. It offers a Periodic Table, a Plot Graph, Element listing, Electron Diagram, and a wealth of information on every element.
Features include:
- The Periodic Table can be shaded according to a particular property, and zoomed to get more information at a time.
- The table will rotate itself for both Portrait and Landscape orientations.
- Mild EleMints only supports the following properties: Classification, Electronegativity, and Physical State.
Resource
All of these Science Apps are available free from iTunes.
Related Information
Readers may aslo be interested in 10 Math Applications for the iPod Touch
