By: Stephanie Reinert

Unit Topic/Theme: Science

Grade: 4th

Lesson Topic/Theme: Ocean Animals

Lesson Objectives:
        - Students will be able to identify the different animals by description
        - Students will be able to know a variety of important facts about all of the animals taught
        - Students will be able to display their knowledge of a certain animal to the class

Instructional Technique:
        - Introduction Quiz (the website)
        - Individual/Group projects on a specific animal
        - Closing Quiz (the website)

Instructional Materials:
        - Quiz Website: http://www.westfield.ma.edu/personalpages/draker/edcom/final/webprojects/sp19/sectionb/oceananimals/index.html
- Individual/Group Animal Project Outline
- Materials for the project which include: poster, markers, construction paper, colored pencils
- Library Books

Theoretical Perspective:
-Learning about the ocean and all of the animals that live in the ocean is a key point of science that students should learn. The ocean makes up about 70% of the Earth and it is important for the students to know what happens within the ocean and how it affects the planet and us every day. These animal species provide us with many different ecosystem resources that we need in our lives. Having the knowledge of these animals will allow the students to realize we need to protect our oceans because they help absorb the carbon dioxide on the earth, reduce climate change, and are a vital resource for us humans.

Procedure:

A. Introductory: The introduction will include the teacher explaining the next topic/lesson we will be learning about, which would be the ocean animals lesson. I would explain which animals we would be learning about but not give to much detail about them since they will be taking a quiz before we start the lesson. I will also explain the overall plan and outline for the lesson. The students would then take the interactive quiz I provided to see how well they know the animals before we start the lesson. I would then take down their quiz scores to see how they improved by the end of the lesson.

B. Step-by-step: For the step-by-step section, I will have the students choose out of a hat an animal that they will be doing a poster project on with or without a partner, it is up to them. Once the student is assigned to an animal they will then go to the library to pick out a couple of books relating to their animal. For this poster project, they will display on the poster board the features of the animal, their habitat, what they eat, any adaptations, the different types of that animal, special features, and how long they live. The students also have the ability to use the internet as a resource. Once the students are done designing their posters, they will present them to the class while everyone gets a change to write down some notes about each animal, which they will be able to use in the future so it is very important they do so.

C. Closure: To finish off the lesson, the students will go back and take the interactive quiz again. This time they will be allowed to use whatever notes they took during the student presentations to help them. We will then compare their scores from the first time they took the quiz to the second time to see how much they improved.

D. Adaptations for different learners:
    - Print out the quiz
    - Have the quiz be read to them
    - Take the quiz only at the end of the lesson for those who need more time and are slower learners
    - Show videos/visuals of the different animals while taking the quiz
    - Have more options for answers

Evaluation:
A. How/ when will you determine if you have met your objectives?
- I will be able to see if the student's knowledge improved by seeing the difference in quiz grades from when they took it before the lesson and after the lesson.
- Being able to see all of the notes the students have taken during the presentations to see if they were paying attention
- If they used their resources appropriately
- Meeting all of the criteria for the project
B. Concerns or questions you have about teaching this lesson?
-Not having enough computers (To fix this issue, I could have people pair up and work in groups)
- Multiple people getting the same animal for the project (To fix this issue, I could expand the range of animals or make more people work together)
- Students memorizing the answers from taking it the first time (To fix this issue, I could make the quiz longer or tell them to not share any answers with other students)