NSES Links:
Science as Inquiry
– Employ simple equipment and tools to
gather data and extend the senses.
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Use data to construct a reasonable explanation.
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Use different kinds of investigations depending on the questions you are trying
to
answer.
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Review and ask questions about others' work.
Physical Science
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Work with the observable properties of objects.
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Objects are made of one or more materials.
Earth and Space Science
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Solids have properties of color and texture.
Iowa Core Standards:
Science as Inquiry
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Use tools to gather data and extend the senses.
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Use data to construct reasonable explanations.
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Students should begin to develop the abilities to communicate, critique, and analyze
their work and the work of other students.
Physical Science
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Objects are made of one or more materials.
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Objects can be described by the properties of the materials from which they are
made.
Properties can be used to separate or sort a group of objects or materials.
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Objects have many observable properties including size, weight, shape, color, temperature
and the ability to react with other substances. Those properties can be measured
using tools such as rulers, balances and thermometers.
Linn Mar District
Standards:
Inquiry and the Nature of Science
K.A.1 Develop abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry.
Physical Science
K.C.1 Develop
understandings of the properties of objects, sizes, shapes, and colors
Science and Technology
K.E.1 Develop understandings of the difference between natural
and human made items
- What do students accomplish?
Students accomplish a variety of investigations and explorations all revolving around fabric. They begin with exploration of fabric and where it exists in their classroom. Students also explore how different types of fabrics feel and begin to look at different types of textures. Much of the initial investigation is inquiry based where students are interacting with fabric by "hunting" it throughout the classroom based on physical properties and creating collages with the fabric pieces. The initial activities show students where fabric is in their world and eventually how to interact with the fabric so that it may be useful for humans. For example, students work with weaving and sewing the fabrics to turn them into either an art piece or a useful pocket.
In the second part of the investigation lessons, students begin to interact with fabric in a more advanced way for the individual fabrics. To begin, students acknowledge how different fabrics react with liquid water, and can further investigate their properties based on the water droplets. Students continue to dye, stain, and clean fabric to see how the world interacts with fabrics. Though stains may be familiar, students are able to distinguish how the fabric is cleaned and make real world connections. As a culminating activity, students use all of their gained knowledge about fabrics to graph, as a class, which fabrics might be the most appropriate for each item of clothing. This activity allows students to exercise their beliefs and ideas about fabrics in their world, their different properties, and how the fabrics could be used as clothes.
- Which activities/actions do you think foster high student involvement?
The exploration and classroom fabric hunt, in particular, intrigue students because they are free to inquire about the fabric and physically search around the classroom for their particular fabric. Students are not being graded but are free to explore, creating a higher achievement of involvement. Just by watching the videos with examples of each lesson, one could easily picture how student involvement also increases with the soiling and washing fabric activity. Students, as the video mentioned, are rarely allowed to purposely stain their clothes so this activity gets students involved with something that they rarely do. The students also received instant gratification as they removed the stains by washing their fabric. Comparing the fabrics with one another added to the scientific inquiry and also gave students scientific comparisons based on stain and washing time.
- What could you do to increase student thinking and/or involvement?
The taking fabric apart lesson along with the sewing activities seemed to lack student involvement at a variety of times. Perhaps adding to the taking fabric apart activity to explain further why certain fabrics are woven and what certain fabrics are made out of would create more student interest. Also, including the fabrics that students may be wearing or very familiar with would increase how involved the students are. The sewing activity seemed like it would create a large student interest, perhaps with a better explanation and modeling in the beginning, students would be more likely to explore different ways of sewing. The modeling seemed to little, especially for kindergarteners. Overall, many of these activities could be more relatable to students and their personal lives.
- What could you do to challenge all students?
Many of these activities can be further extended for students in a variety of ways. In order to challenge all students, having students discuss extensions that connect to the real world allow for background knowledge and cultural knowledge to be contributed to the whole group. Perhaps if students seem very advanced, especially in activities such as the weaving lesson, students could act as the "expert" and help other students in the classroom. Another way to encourage students who may be advanced to go farther in their learning would be to have them create their own experiment or investigation based on what they would like to still learn about fabric.
- How could you assess student growth throughout the unit?
The kit is very helpful in terms of laying out pre-planned assessment activities. Student science notebooks are a great way to formatively assess student learning during many of the activities. Kidwatching and checklist techniques can be employed again as a formative assessment during many of the lesson while students are working independently. During the culminating activity, students have a classroom discussion about why they chose certain fabrics for certain clothing items. This discussion, if teacher-led, would be a great way to summatively assess what students have learned, how they can apply this knowledge to the real world, and how they extend their knowledge based on what they have learned about fabric.
- Where in the lessons could you have students self-assess? What are some ideas for student self-assessment?
Students can self-assess after almost every activity in their science notebooks. Perhaps drawing a picture or writing a short sentence would allow students to compile their thoughts about how the activity went and where they could extend their knowledge would work as a wonderful self-assessment. When students do projects that they are truly involved in, perhaps having them self-assess their efforts and their findings would be very useful. Students will be more motivated to self-assess their achievements and could perhaps even create individual rubrics while scoring themselves, based upon what they wanted to learn.
- What would you need to do to develop your knowledge in this area? Where could/would you begin that process?
In terms of fabric, I feel as though my knowledge is fairly broad. However, thinking about specific fabrics and where or how they are used may be useful. Considering what fabrics are used more often in modern times than in earlier times, for what types of materials and why would be great background knowledge to provide students with. Personal research about man made versus machine made fabrics would be a great starting place for additional fabric knowledge. Looking into cultural information and historical information based on fact would be interesting and useful to begin learning more about fabric. Additionally exploring fabric stores and other options for investigating fabric would be a great place to start for learning a little background knowledge about fabric for the classroom.
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