Project Sketch

Next to the school in which I teach is an athletic park with a natural areas through which a creek (Enver Creek) runs. One lunch hour a teacher friend of mine and I walked through the park on the small trail that has been worn into the land by neighborhood kids and adults. What we saw was shocking. Garbage was strewn all over, a folding chair laid in the creek and a board acting as a makeshift bridge. Earlier in the year, motor oil had been dumped into storm drains on school property and students told me that some had also been dumped into the creek.

In this project I want to combine the school goal of improving student achievement in nonfiction reading with nonfiction writing, science, daily physical education and Fine Arts. While the aim of the project is to be integrated so that subjects are not separated, it helps me in my planning to think of each subject separately. My goals for this project is first, to encourage students to appreciate what they have in their athletic park and natural area. Secondly, I hope to make the study of renewable resources more substantial and hopefully more meaningful to students in an urban school by narrowing the breadth of the topics covered with an emphasis on watersheds (renewable resources).

Science

Grade 5 students are required to learn about conservation and natural resources in science. Instead of just studying renewable resources (water, fishing, forestry) in a few lessons from our textbook, I am going to have students study the watershed (natural area). The creek supports a salmon hatchery which will be investigated to tie in fishing to our study. Water and forestry are naturally linked into the concept of watersheds. Students will become scientists and investigate what is contained within our watershed (living and non living things) and how they are interconnected (food webs, water cycle ..). As far as I can tell, what is contained with in the watershed has not been investigated previously, in fact there is little written about the creek and even finding out the name of the creek was challenging. What I have found out is that the creek is listed as threatened by the DFO, due to water quality issues caused by humans misuse of the watershed. Fifth grade scientists will take field trips into the park to make guided observations. We will record our observations through digital photos, sketches and in written form.

Fine Arts

My class has access to 15 digital cameras for three weeks which will be used to capture images of the things we find in the watershed. Students will be taught about digital cameras, taking photos and working together to create a collaborative ‘display’.

Language Arts

Students will be organized into pairs and will research a topic of interest (water, a bug, a tree...) that they observed. There are possibilities for obtaining primary, original data (such as water and soil quality testing) and observations (canopy cover) that could be done if it is an area of student interest. Research topics might include what happens when this water enters the ocean, specific plants and animals could be researched as well. At this point it will become necessary for students to communicate with experts, which I will facilitate. In pairs, students will create a two page spread, using Mixbook, in which they will organize information using nonfiction text features. This forms part of the reading prescribed learning outcomes I plan to include in this project. Students will present their research to the community by presenting the page that they created (oral language prescribed learning outcomes) at a celebration of their work in December.

Potential Problems

-The project does not cover nonrenewable resources in a direct, substantial way. I'd have to plan for some additional science to be taught to satisfy the required learning outcomes.

-I do not know my class. The readiness of my class at this time is unknown. I will have 3 weeks prior to the project to assess my students’ knowledge.

-Weather is a possible problem. Rain will limit the use of digital cameras. This project is planned for October. (Really, even having this project planned for May this year would have been problematic - will summer ever start in Vancouver?)