google doc/ podcast

hey, I uploaded my podcast to google docs, its right next to yours. I'm trying to add it now but I can't figure it out. eek can you add it for me??

Update

Ok, I created the ePals page and added a picture. Yesterday we were trying to attach it as a document but I just copy/pasted it in there.

I posted under the web url post about my podcast...read it and let me know what to do.

thanks sooooo much!

Recent Activities

Chad,

We have to remember to delete the recent activities portion. Will you do that right before you submit?

Google Map

Hey. I made the google map page and put it under construction of gardens. It shows up on the bottom of the page if you click on construction of gardens but I can't see it on the side bar. Do you know how to fix this?

Kristen

Need your URLs!

Hi,
I see you put a spot for your podcasts on the Welcome page. That's great. I need the URLs to link it to. If you can send those to me that would be great. Also, I see the Climatology page. I will try and fix that on the navigation. Thanks, C.

Group Project Updates

Hi Chad and Melissa! Kaila and I are working on the website right now. Just wanted to give you guys some updates:

Kristen's pages:

-Construction of Gardens
-Types of Plants

Kaila's pages:

-Climatology
-Types of Gardens

We are both planning on putting our two new resources on these pages. We were thinking that we should make another page "resources" where we could post ALL of our stuff from the semester - podcasts, digital stories, etc. How does that sound? We will create this and post our stuff and you guys can add to it.

We will do the inspiration concept map but is there an easier way to do it besides re-doing the whole thing since Melissa created it in the first place. Honestly I don't know that we even have any changes to make. What do you think? We could take out a few things we didn't use but I don't think we have anything to add. It's hard for us to re-do it when we don't know what everyone is doing for their pages.

Can someone put the podcast together and post that? Also I think Melissa is the one who did the ePals and Google map (and Chad helped) can one of you guys post that?

That should be everything let us know your thoughts!

Kristen and Kaila

Pod Cast Submission??

Kaila and Melissa did you guys ever submit your portions of the podcast? We have to include that on our website so I just want to make sure that we have the whole thing done.

Final Project

Hey all,
It's time to start collaborating on the final project. I've looked it over several times now and there is a LOT that needs to be done. I think we're going to have to sit down and assign tasks. Otherwise it won't all get done. Let me know your thoughts/schedule. Thanks.

Pod Cast

Hi everyone. I am trying to submit my podcast but I am waiting for Melissa and Kaila to post topics of what you will be doing and who will be going third (after me) so I can introduce it at the end of mine so it all flows together. If you could please post your topic asap so I can submit that would be great. Thanks!

PodCast

Well, it looks like we are all waiting to get started this week! Has anyone picked a topic for the podcast yet? I'm a little confused -- Are we supposed to be podcasting about the topics we used for our lesson plans, or are we each picking something different from our project overall?

I appreciate your input!
Chad

Google Map

Here is the link to our team's Google map.
http://maps.google.com/maps/mm?ie=UTF8&hl=en&ll=37.0625,-95.677068&spn=29.910058,52.470703&z=4

Module 4 Seed Exchange

Mystery Seeds Project

 

Grade: 4th Grade

 

Objective:

For students to collaborate with peers within in their own class and with students from other regions in order to solve what types of plants grow best in specific regions. Students will also learn how to collect and compare data using multiple math and science skills including making graphs, records, measuring, calculating area and percentages.

 

Summary:

Students will be broken up into four small groups (five depending on the size of the class). Each group will be given a package of seeds. The seeds will be from plants that are native to four specific regions across the US (not our region). Students will plant the seeds. They will be given specific instructions about the needs of these plants (type of soil, amount of light, temp., and amount of water needed) and will have materials provided to create and sustain the needed conditions. As the seeds grow, students will make observations about amount of growth over time, how many plants resulted from the seeds (another math skill-percentages), characteristics of each plant (comparisons of individual plants within a species to determine “typical” characteristics as well as species defining characteristics such as leaf shape, number of leafs per stem, height of stem, coloring, flower/veggie produced, etc.), and environmental conditions (they will keep records of air temperature, hours of sunlight exposure, amount of water, ph of soil?). Once the plants have grown to maturity (6-8 weeks), students will do some research to identify the plants. The mystery will be in identifying where the plant originated. The students will match the plant to the school it came from: Leeds Elementary School in Leeds, AL; Aikahi Elementary School in Kailua, HI; Aggie Roberts Elementary School in Henderson, NV; and Alice Fong Yu Alternative School in San Francisco, CA (even if we have to buy the seeds). Students will also research the regional conditions of the other locations. They can study weather maps (temp, precipitation), topographical maps, and regional gardening maps for each region. We could also use the farmer's almanac, online or print version, to look at weather patterns to help us determine where our seeds might be from. Another way to record our data would be to set up a still digital camera and have students take two digital pictures of the garden area each day. If we mounted the camera in a fixed position, we could then pull all the photos together with a time lapse effect of our growing season (without the expense of using a real time lapse camera.) After the plants mature and are identified, they can try to figure out which school sent what seeds based on the information they gathered. When they have them right, they can send thank you notes to those students.

 

When would your students contact these other students (at what point in their project work)?

Students could contact the other students from the four schools listed above before the project to share their own gardening experiences and confirm that the seeds they chose to send were received and planted, during the project to share what they are learning about the plants they are growing and to report the results of their inquiries, and after the project to thank the other students and find out how the seeds they sent fared.We could then share our "time lapse" photos of the project to show students how the seeds grew. It would make a neat visual for the students.

 

What kinds of questions would they ask each other and what kinds of information would they share?

What types of things they considered when choosing plants for their own outdoor gardens?
What have been your greatest challenges and how did you overcome them?
What have been your greatest successes so far and what do you think contributed to these?
What is your favorite gardening activity?
Were our seeds able to grow in your garden or only under the conditions we listed they needed?
They would also share growth information perhaps on a weekly basis.
What do you do with the plants you grow in your garden?
How/where were our seeds planted? Is your garden outdoors/indoors?
They could share pictures of their garden setups. (Using out time lapse configuration would be a neat tool here.)
Does it rain a lot where you are? Do you have an irrigation system?
How do you measure the amount of water the plants receive?
It might also be fun to ask more about the social or cultural aspects of gardening -- such as, how many people in your neighborhood have a garden? Why? Is it for growing food, or for making their yards pretty?
Does your garden attract any animals or insects (aphids, butterflies, birds?)

What will they do with the information they get from the other students?

They can record information on a growth chart to compare with their own growth chart to see similarities and differences. In addition to the comparisons, they can try some of the strategies other students have used to overcome challenges and promote success. They can gain regional clues from how the other children chose plants for their gardens. They can formulate their own plans for how to use the plants using the ideas of the other students.

What are the garden requirements?

The gardens will consist of planters that will be 4' x 4' for 4 small groups and 5'x5' for 5 small groups that will be located both inside and outside. We can grow plants that are native to our region outdoors while we pursue the collaborative aspect of the project indoors (so the environment is more easily controlled). In using seeds from other regions, we could plant some indoors (using the conditions that are most like the native region) and some in our own gardens and make record of which ones cannot grow in our region. Students will use math skills to measure and determine the area of the planters as well as figure out how to divide the planters equitably among small groups for the project. They will also have less weed intrusion this way. [This idea also came from the Leeds project as Eagle Scouts in the area volunteered to build wooden planters for each classroom].

 

What types of plants/seeds are we interested in exploring? (vegetables, flowers, grains, herbs)

I am not sure that all of the plants have to be of the same type. In fact, I think it would be more interesting if they were of differing types but this would necessitate more resources for children to use in identifying them and make their task a little more challenging. If they were all the same type of plant (i.e. edible/vegetable), it may be easier for students to associate with a region.Using the mounted camera system, we would also be able to collect data on shadows in the garden, which could be used later to talk about the Earth's rotation on its axis and the changing of the seasons.

 

Prior knowledge/experience needed:

The 4^th grade Social Studies GLCEs focus on learning about the United States. By the spring, students should have some idea about the other states that form the Union as well as have some background knowledge about some basic characteristics of each region (where they are located geographically and how that relates to our location, how the climate of different regions compares to ours).

Students need to do their own garden planting outside (with their teacher) before embarking on a collaborative effort so they have a better understanding of space, plants to choose and why, soil, etc. These could be done simultaneously though as I know time is limited. It is important that students gain an understanding of the region we live in and the plants that live here. Then they can do comparisons between our region and other regions. Doing their own garden first also helps work out some of the challenges students may face with gardening in general before they collaborate.

MovieMaker projects

Hi guys,
Just an update. I added my thoughts to the Google Document started by Melissa. I have also started working on my MovieMaker project using the topic How Plants Reproduce. It looks like these are going to be neat projects to share.

Once you all have edited the Google Doc as you wish, let me know and I will post it to our blog as we're required.

Melissa - did you say you had started the Google Map part of this assignment yet?

ePals/Google Docs

I put a document containing the description of the ePals assignment I worked on last semester in the folder for our group. I was not able to locate any other documents for this assignment so if they exist, please let me know how to find them (It showed the folder as empty). The seed exchange we proposed was a little involved but I liked the idea of there being more to it than just exchanging seeds with one school and seeing how they grew. I think kids are more involved when they are doing their own inquiries and investigations. I seem to be stuck on a comparison theme though.

Please feel free to change the document in any way. I would like to broaden my way of thinking about this project in general so I can begin to see the big picture. I feel like I have a lot of little parts and so far, the only way I've been able to connect them is through focusing on a few objectives. The concept map, for me, was like a list of objectives and I want to be sure each branch is covered. I am struggling with the micro view of it and some of the semantics (how the project would play out in a classroom). Perhaps if you all shared a brief summary of your lessons, I could add them to the concept map? I am not trying to make more work for anyone but I would like to be able to see other ideas.

Mod 4

What is everyone doing for their digital story? I just want to make sure no one is planning on doing the same thing. I'm not positive what I'm doing yet.

I'm going to be out of town all next week, so I'm trying to get everything for this and next week done before I leave on Monday.

Types of Plants

Melissa - what are you doing for your topic? I know we are covering weather and types of gardens but can I do types of plants? If not I'll do the construction of a garden. Let me know! And thanks for posting your sites. Can everyone keep posting them so we make sure we don't use the same ones?

Thanks, Kristen

More Web Sites

Hi guys,
I looked at some websites for our project. I have found a few and am working on evaluating them. I looked for some that are weather related, as well as some general sites that will help us. I've listed them below.

http://climate.nasa.gov/kids/greenCareers/landscaper/
http://www.gardeningwithkids.org/
http://www.no-dig-vegetablegarden.com/gardening-for-kids.html
http://www.almanac.com/
http://www.thekidsgarden.co.uk/HowDoesTheWeatherEffectTheGarden.html

Mod 3

For the lesson plan, I'm doing the different types of gardens. Hopefully no one has done that, no one posted about it so I'm going to just go for it and finish it up. What is everyone else doing for their lesson plan?

Mod 3 Assignment

I would like to come up with a lesson plan based on climatology from the concept map. This would be for this week's Mod 3 assignment. If this poses a problem for anyone, let me know. I don't want to duplicate anyone's work!

Thanks!

Just an FYI

Thanks for getting a jump start on the web evaluations, Melissa. I will be sure to post as soon as I start this portion.

I just wanted to let the group know that my wife is having surgery in Detroit June 1, so I will be out of town for a few days. With that in mind, I am going to try and work ahead a week. I have created a folder in Google Documents and have sent you all invitations. This is for a group assignment due in Mod 4. If anyone could look at the first part of that assignment and let me know what you might like to do, I will get it started for us. We have to come up with an assignment for our project that will demonstrate cultural understanding.

One idea might be to compare gardens from different parts of the world -- i.e., we grow tomatoes and sweet corn in our home garden. What does a home garden look like in London or Madrid? What time of year does gardening take place? How big are the gardens?

Let me know if you have other ideas. I hate to rush the deadline on this one, but if I can get it started for us this week, it won't be a burden to any of you while I'm gone next week.

Thanks for your help in advance.

Web Evaluations

I know everyone is going to be working on Web Evaluations this week ( I did this assignment last semester) so I wanted to let you know the sites I used early because there can be no duplications. I used the following sites:

http://urbanext.illinois.edu/firstgarden/

http://www.garden.org

http://www.extension.iastate.edu/GrowingintheGarden

The first two are really good sites but the last one is not really for use with students. I found a lot of really cool sites that I did not use but thought I would share. Some are Garden Projects already in existence at schools across the country and others I found while doing the Virtual Field Trips assignment. I found the Garden Projects while I was working on the ePals and Google maps assignment last semester. Since I am not submitting any of them as part of these assignments, I thought they might be helpful to the group.

http://www.edibleschoolyard.org/

http://www.efn.org/~sgp/

http://www.kidsgardening.org/ (This site can be found as part of or linked to the garden.org website but it has links to many schools who are doing gardening projects and are willing to share seeds and communicate via ePals. I used it to find 4 schools for the ePals and Google Maps assignment that is due next week. You can view the work we did on that assignment at http://edt3470gardening2.blogspot.com/2010/02/epal-description-module-4.html. The Google map is just below it. Obviously we do not have to go this route, but it may be a place to start for ideas.)

On the urbanext.illinois.edu site there is another game that I found during the virtual field trip assignment called, "The Great Plant Escape." It helps students learn about plants parts and structure, plus what plants need to grow.

http://gardeninglaunchpad.com/kids.html (This site has links to tons of different sites that are about kids and gardening.)

There are also some really good math and science activities that relate to our project at www.uen.org. The ones I looked at specifically were "Ecology Grid," "Real Life Math," and "Biomes of North America."

I just thought I would share some of these so you could see more of what I am learning. It would be great if you would also share the websites you are viewing so I can learn from those as well.

Concept Map with Larger Fonts

The World is a Garden Project Concept Map

Concept Map

Chad, those are some great ideas. I don't know too much about gardening, but it seems like you covered some of the main things there. I like the idea of being able to tie in the weather and such also.

Ideas for the concept map

Hi all,
I've been thinking about the concept map that is due Sunday. Here are a few ideas of things we might want to touch on as we develop our project. Hopefully this brainstorming format doesn't bother anyone...!

Types of gardens - water gardens, indoor gardens, fruit and vegetable gardens
Importance of gardening - environmental benefits, self sustaining, erosion control, eating health/organic
The role of weather/climate - different zones where plants grow, how climate affects the landscape around us
Logistics - what plants need to grow (water, sunlight, fertilizer)
Anatomy of a plant
How plants reproduce
Importance of gardens here, vs around the world

These are just a few of the things that come to mind when I think about teaching fourth or fifth grade students about gardening. I like the idea of being able to tie in weather, science and social studies.

What am I missing? What else do you guys think?

Group Conduct Policy

Hi guys -
I am getting ready to go to work and I will not be able to get back to my computer before tomorrow. So, I made a command decision to go with Gardening as our topic, as suggested by Melissa. I apologize for being abrupt, but I couldn't wait. If the topic ends up changing, that is fine with me. I am flexible in this regard. But I wanted to get the assignment in on time. Again, I am very happy to continue with the gardening project Melissa started last term. Hope you are all having a good week so far.

I'm looking forward to seeing how this turns out!

Chad

Hello Everyone!

As I posted on the class discussion board, I would very much like to continue to work on a Gardening Project. I have done a good deal of research on the topic already and would like to share in your ideas as well. The project assignments are fairly involved but individual so collaboration here is crucial.

Since Chad was so kind as to begin the blog, I will be glad to do the first concept map in Inspiration. To do this, we all have to share our general ideas about the scope of the project. What concepts would we like to teach about gardening? What do we know/need to know? What would make this project useful to students?

My next post will be my project ideas and a synopsis of the first lesson I already wrote. Since everyone has to do their own lesson plan, I want to make sure no one duplicates mine. I also did the Google Map assignment last semester. I realize it may not fit into what this group comes up with for the project but it is sort of general so I hope we can use it. I hope I am not overwhelming anyone by jumping ahead but this semester is going to fly by I think.

It is great to meet you and I look forward to a productive partnership with each of you. I love the idea of professional collaboration...four minds are definitely better than one!

Welcome

Hello, groupmates!
I went ahead and got us started with the blog. As soon as you send me your gmail addresses, I will add you as authors.

I am looking forward to working with you all!

Chad