Weather Around Us
Learning Activity Plan 1
What is Weather?
Lorrie Heard
March 29, 2014
WOK: Science
I.
Content: Describe what it is you will teach. What is the content?
This lesson is the first in my unit titled “Weather Around Us”. We will ask the
question “What is weather?” and students will use their prior knowledge on the
subject to answer the question. We will also begin to take on the role of
meteorologists as we think about what they do and how we will implement some
of these practices into our work in the classroom (science notebooks, science
corner, question box, investigations, and inquiry based learning). Lastly, students
will begin to think about how science (as evidenced in weather) is all around us,
constantly affecting us, and always changing.
II.
Learning Goal(s): Describe what specifically students will know and be able to
do after the experience of this class.
Students will be able to define weather and meteorologist through using their own
background knowledge and brainstorming about it in small groups. Students will
begin to know the important process of science notebooks through some guided
beginner steps.
III.
Rationale: Explain how the content and learning goal(s) relate to your
Curriculum Unit Plan learning goals.
This lesson is very much an introduction to scientific thinking and the job and
responsibilities of a Scientist. This is the first lesson that we have done with
science all year and so I really want my students to be aware that it is not just
“experiments” but inquiry – asking questions, collaborating with the community,
investigating things over time, and keeping track of all of these things through
documentation in a science notebook. I hope that this lesson will also make
students realize that science is happening all around them and that they are always
learning more about it.
IV.
Assessment: Describe how you and your students will know they have reached
your learning goals.
The forms of assessment that I will be looking at in this lesson are class
discussion, KWL charts, and quiet observation time. Discussion will be important
in this introductory lesson because a lot of it will be brainstorming and students
using their prior knowledge to discuss our new content. Through discussion I will
be able to see who has some understanding of the concepts of the lesson (What is
science? What is weather? What is meteorology?), who has a limited
understanding, and what misconceptions students have. I expect that most
students will be able to participate in this low-stakes discussion. To add on
another layer to this assessment students will have the opportunity to work on
KWL charts, which will engage them independently in our new content. The last
form of assessment will be the science notebook, which will help me to see the
Learning Activity Plan 1
next directions I need to go to support my students through this new journey of
expressing themselves and their ideas.
V.
Personalization and equity: Describe how you will provide for individual student
strengths and needs. How will you and your lesson consider the needs of each
student and scaffold learning? How specifically will ELL students and students
with learning disabilities gain access and are supported?
In this lesson there will be an important balance of collaboration as a class and
independent thinking and study. I will employ a variety of Sheltered English
Immersion strategies into my lesson to support English Language Learners and
my lower level students including think-pair-share, brainstorms, using prior
knowledge, KWL graphic organizers, small group work, and charts/visuals. These
scaffolds will support my students through the majority of the lesson, which will
be done mostly collaboratively. For the independent science notebook observation
time, I want my students to be able to explore this area in a low-stakes
environment. This activity is highly personalized as there are no specific
guidelines/expectations for students’ work with the notebooks but I will have a
time before or after this process (depending on time) where students can share
what they wrote with a partner to talk about their ideas and see new ideas. I will
also conference with students who may struggle during the independent writing
process.
VI.
Activity description and agenda
a. Describe the activities that will help your students understand the content of
your class lesson by creating an agenda with time frames for your class. Be
prepared to explain why you think each activity will help students on the path
toward understanding.
Time
10:55
11:05
Activity
What is science?
- Think-pair-share
What does a scientist do?
- Think-pair-share
- Talk about science notebooks
- What are some different kinds of
scientists?  Meteorologist (who
studies weather – we will become
meteorologists!
KWL chart independently
- What do you know about
meteorology, the study of weather?
- What do you wonder?
- Talk about how we will fill in what
we’ve learned throughout the unit
Share in “Science Groups”
Share out for large “classroom KWL”
Rationale
I think this is an important way to start
the lesson because I want students to
see that they have some prior
knowledge on the topic. I also will use
this as an assessment to find out what
students already know.
The KWL chart will be a good way for
students to figure out for themselves
what they already know about weather
(especially if some of those things are
misconceptions). Students will also
have the opportunity to write down
questions that they have about weather.
Throughout the unit, students will have
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Learning Activity Plan 1
chart
11:30
Discuss “Science corner” and how
they should always be on the look out
for things to add to the science corner
-Guidelines for science corner
11:45
Guidelines for Quiet observation time
(science notebook reflection)
- Followed by our first quiet
observation time (we will go outside
to do this if the weather is decent)
opportunities to answer questions that
they have.
I want to discuss the science corner
rather than tell my students about it so
that they will understand it is a group
effort and a place where everyone can
share things they are learning about the
weather around us (or science in
general).
Quiet observation time will be an
important part of our journey as
scientists and our exploration into the
science notebooks. After scientific
experiments and investigations this will
also be an important time for
independent reflection.
b. What particular challenges, in terms of student learning or implementing
planned activity, do you anticipate and how will you address them?
I am introducing brand new material this lesson so I expect that there will be
some challenges in student’s learning and in implementation, many of which I
probably will not be able to foresee at this time. I do, however, think that
students will struggle with the KWL chart. We have done this once before and
my students took it way too seriously even though it was a low-stakes writing
assignment. The other issue that I ran into was that many students weren’t
documenting all of their prior knowledge on the sheet so there was a great
deal of “holes” in what they knew and what they wondered. For this lesson, I
will provide a lot more support when introducing this assignment including
some modeling, maybe having students brainstorming the first few responses
aloud, etc. I will also support the learners in my classroom by making a “class
KWL chart” (after students have had time to work on their independently),
which I hope will help bring everything together a little more concretely.
Another challenge that I anticipate is that quite observation time will be
messy. This is a pretty open ended thing that I am doing by having my
students write about whatever they want, whatever “observations” they have
at the time – for some students, it will be a fun experience and for some they
will feel lost and desire more structure. I plan to support this challenge by
keeping it low-stakes and open ended, making sure that the definition of
“observations” is clear, and having time either before or after for students to
share their writing or plans for writing with a partner to support students who
may feel lost.
VII.
List the Massachusetts Learning Standards this lesson addresses.
Weather plays a major role in MA Science Frameworks. While we aren’t
targeting any standards specifically this lesson is an introductory into this aspect
of the curriculum. Because an important part of this lesson is using students’ prior
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knowledge I decided to look back at the grades 1-2 standard which has a more
general perspective on weather knowledge: 3. Describe the weather changes
from day to day and over the seasons.
VIII.
Reflection
a. In light of all areas of planning, but especially in terms of your stated purpose
and learning goals, in what ways was the activity(ies) successful? How do you
know? In what ways was it not successful? How might the activity be planned
differently another time?
Overall, I feel that things went well. The first activity, the brainstorms about what
science is and what a scientist does worked out well. Everyone seemed to have something
that they wanted to contribute but it seemed like the general consensus was that science
was “when you do experiments”, which I kind of expected due to my students general
lack of knowledge in this area. A lot of the students also shared experiences with science
that they had had in grades prior, most of which were “experiments” where they were
manipulating “liquids” or something else having to do with water. I was honestly
surprised that they’d had any experiences in previous grades simply because of the lack
of work that we have done with science this year.
When we were discussing the things that scientists do I prompted their thinking a
little by asking, “What kinds of scientists are there?” Most students generally said things
like “animal scientists”, “scientists that dig underground”, “scientists that do research”. I
mentioned that doctors were scientists and the kids were amazed – I guess they had never
thought of doctor’s study of the body as a science, which I thought was really interesting.
One student mentioned something more specific by saying “geologists” and this
prompted others. Next, one student said “Meteorologists” which was the perfect segue
into our next topic of discussion. But first I was curious to see if he knew what a
meteorologist was; his response was “a scientist who studies meteors” – although
incorrect, a valid response. Other students knew what it was and were able to correct him.
This discussion through think-pair-share was really helpful for me to see where my
students were at in terms of their scientific knowledge.
The last things we really got to do were the KWL chart and briefly talk about the
science notebooks and the science corner. Having the students work on the KWL chart
independently didn’t work out as well as I had hoped – students were being distracting
(because they generally hate doing independent work) and because it was something that
we hadn’t really done before, I think they felt a little unsure. Because of time as well as a
general sense that students were struggling, I skipped the sharing session with group
members and went right to having them share with the class. After a few suggestions
from students who were more engaged with the task, other students began to speak up
and soon about half the class was raising their hand excited to share their own ideas. By
the end of the class brainstorm we had finished filling in the entire K and W parts of the
chart. Discussions about the science notebook and the science corner generally went well
– I think I won’t really be able to speak to those things in reflection until they are
“practiced” a little bit more.
In terms of changes, I definitely need to evaluate my time. I talked to my mentor
teacher at the end of the day about time and she seemed really strict that I would only
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Learning Activity Plan 1
have 6 hours to teach this lesson (2 hours twice a week for three weeks). Maybe I need to
plan less so that there can be a decent amount of time for science notebook observations
and reflections…? Whatever it may be, I know that I will probably need to change things
around from the way I am used to doing them and generally just simplify things for my
students – think these changes will help me make better use of my time. I also need to be
careful about the independent work that I have them doing – making sure that it is
appropriate for their level and fairly simple. Because time is short with these lessons I
can’t really afford to spend as much time modeling as I have in past units. I need to figure
ways to assess their learning that don’t require as much attention to detail and instruction.
b. What did you learn from the experience of this lesson that will inform your
next LAP?
Because of some miscommunication with my mentor teacher I confused about the
amount of time I had would have for my lesson. Thus, some things were cut out/cut short,
which was disappointing. I just have to learn from this experience and grow and make
sure that I am keeping the timing on my lessons more strict – which will be hard but a
good lesson to learn. I am going to be thinking a lot about how I can make these changes
and still keep learning meaningful, engaging, hands-on, etc.
I really saw the positives of the think-pair-share as well as the brainstorming
strategies. My students were so much more engaged when they had the opportunity to
think quietly about their ideas without the pressure of other students raising their hand,
share their ideas with a partner, and hear others ideas and build on them. I have found
that the think-pair-share is always a little bit awkward because my students aren’t used to
waiting and thinking quietly to themselves before answering a question – they are used to
being the first to raise their hand. But I think it was worth it make practice of it and give
other students time to think about what they might say. It also held students accountable
for staying on task. Those students who didn’t have anything to share during that part of
the think-pair-share felt the consequence of fooling around and talking about other stuff
with their friends during learning time. I definitely think I will continue to use both
models in my lessons.
I think the general feeling about science among my students is that it is fun and hands
on. When I told my students that we were going to becoming “meteorologists” the look
on their face was genuine surprise and excitement. I can’t wait to see them grow as this
unit progresses.
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