Lesson Overview
Students will reflect on the projec to date, compare their results to their hypotheses, and draw conclusions about their schoolyard.
Day 8: An Analysis of a Schoolyard
Objectives
Scientists draw conclusions based on data collected. Conclusions made by scientists are often used to support a recommendation to engage in a specific action. Living and nonliving elements of a schoolyard affect each other. Questions arise out of scientific experiments that lead to other experiments.
Time:
2 class periods
Setting:
classroom
Materials
- Student handouts
- Pencils
- Data from previous lessons in this unit plan
Procedure
- Have the class complete question 1 on the student sheet.
- Display for the class the composite results of the Land Cover Types. Have the students compare these with their predictions, and to complete the Land Cover Type table. Ask them what it means to scientists if their hypothesis is right or wrong. Finally, display the composite class hypothesis and compare results.
- Have students complete the remainder of the worksheet. Feel free to discuss with the students their answers to question 7. Based on the information gathered, what are some of the things they might like to change about their school yard? Why? How might they go about making some of those changes. You may wish to use this as a springboard from which the students might draft a letter to the school’s site council, or make a presentation at a PTA meeting discussing some of their results and related suggestions.
Lesson Resources
- Schoolyard Analysis Student Handout (pdf, 27 KB)
NYS Standards
MST 1 - Mathematical analysis, scientific inquiry, and engineering design
Benchmarks for Science Literacy
1B Scientific Inquiry
1C The scientific enterprise