What

Students will learn about erosion through observing a simulation of erosion on grass, soil and
soil with dead leaves as I explain a little bit about the process.
They will be asked questions to get them to start thinking about what they think is going to
happen and what they are using to support their prediction and practice the skills of scientific
inquiry
After watching the demonstration they will practice collecting evidence and drawing and labeling
diagrams by writing down what they observe and drawing a diagram of the demonstration
Students will practice critical discourse with each other procedures evidence and explanations
by talking to each other about their diagrams , what they observed and if it supports their claims

Some Challenges I anticipate are resistance to inquiry based teaching.

students in class are used to being evaluated on well they remember details about scientific
content not necessarily on their investigative skills or reasoning . Some students are very
anxious about knowing the right answer. During lessons they might not focus on the process of
how we are building understanding together because they want to get to what content they have
to know as soon as possible

I plan to meet this challenge by providing structure/scaffolding to discussion and observations.

I will have part of the diagram pre made such as lines for observations, a outline of a bottle and
cup for students to fill in and a zoom in text feature to encourage students to look more closely
at the water they observe

In terms of discussion I plan to ask questions to the group to guide discussion like
What do you notice?
what do you think is going to happen when.?
How would you compare the three cups
Why do you think this happened

And encourage students to refer to their evidence when explaining their thoughts
These are terrific.

Why
I am teaching in the context of an experiment and peer discussion because most of the science
students have been exposed to in the classroom so far has been focused on memorizing
scientific fact rather than building scientific thinking or exploring how people do science.

I am teaching erosion in an experimental and open ended way not because I want kids to be
able to regurgitate every fact about the erosion process but to integrate in a limited way doing
the work of science through predictions observations and drawing conclusions using a topic they
will be learning in class.

I am interested in the idea of confusion building depth and breadth outlined in Duckworth were
puzzling over a not readily apparent answer and considering different possibilities deepens
understanding

These sound excellent. You would think that the zoom in would be obvious to kids by now, but it
isn't always, so just explain.

How

How I plan to teach soil erosion is through inquiry based learning where students make
predictions and ask questions about what they observe to get to an answer that makes sense to
them

Through group discussion between peers with some guiding questions form me
Is through tactile observations s as well as visual ones to reach kids of various types of
intelligence spatial and bodily kinetic

Goals I Objectives
Objectives Introduce students to erosion in a simple and engaging way
To teach a science lesson in an open ended experiential way and allow student to draw their
own conclusions about what they observe

Goals:
Introduce students to the basic of erosion
Students will be able to take observations on science experiment
Students will be able to Formulate a question / prediction about the experiment
Students will be able to have critical discourse with each other about procedures evidence and
explanations the have for what they observed
Students will be able to draw diagrams of what they observe
It seems like the District has wanted these in terms of SWAT (Student will be able to) and IOT (in
order to) I am fine with yours, but think about how you would do that if you had to.
I reformatted my expectations as SWATs
Standards (and Assessment Anchors, if applicable)

Conducting Scientific Investigations

Analyzing and interpreting Data (Students will Formulate scientific questions collect data and
test solutions )
Cross cutting concepts:
System and System Models: (making a model of soil erosion )
Core Idea PS3:
Motion and Stability : forces and interactions
Core Idea PS2 C
Stability and Instability in Physical Systems (weathering and erosion)

Cause and Effect : (how have the different soil environments affected the clarity of the
water)
Stability and Change; (how does the process or erosion change the earth)

OK, for the final presentation please reformulate these, but I think you have all the right ideas. I
would put Models and Modeling under Practices as well.
Yes and Cause and Effect. Probably others as well.

Materials and preparation

Plastic water bottles
Plastic liter soda bottles (clear)

Sod
Dead leaves
Soil
String/twine
Pitcher
Cardboard box
Paper
Pencils
Laptop
Colored pencils

To prepare :

Fill a pitcher with water

cut the bottoms off 3 water bottles and cut two small slits into the sides
Take pieces of string and tie them on either side so the bottoms have a string handle

Cut the side off three liter soda bottles rest them on their side on the edge of a cardboard fill
one with dirt one with dirt and leaves and one with dirt with grass on top

Hang the water bottle bottoms off the opening of the soda bottles

picture would help here.

I put a still from the video I got the demonstration idea from to explain the setup of this lesson

Have a video on erosion prepared on laptop

Classroom arrangement and management issues

Briefly describe the physical arrangement of the class with respect to managing your plans in
the particular space:
1.Describe the classroom arrangement you will use; explain why you have chosen it. Consider
where students will be for each part of the lesson and how they will get there.
2. Describe how students will get the materials needed.
3.Anticipate management concerns likely to arise and describe steps you will or have taken into
address them.

I plan to set up at the back table in my classroom with a small group of six students
J.B M., J.M. K.V., T.C,. Ta, and D.W. because its towards the back of the room and has
chairs the students can sit around
Please anonymize if you have not already. Initials work

Materials will be set out ahead of time. I anticipate that Ty. will struggle to focus with exciting
materials out so I plan to sit closest to him and ask him to assist me during the materials.
I anticipate D. W. may be too shy to participate and will ask him guided questions during
discussion
I anticipate other students may be distracted by the science lesson so I may ask my classroom
teacher if I can pull kids out or Prep or use another classroom space

If you position the students so that they are facing you, and the wall, and you are facing the
class, the class may not see what is going on, and you can signal kids to do their own work if
you notice them watching your group
I ended up setting students around a table with the demo in the middle so they could all see
better . I also ended up setting up the demo downstairs under the stairs as my classroom
teacher felt it would be too distracting to do this lesson in the class

Plan
Include the imagined sequence of events (with a time estimate for each part of the lesson)
1) the "hook"
Lead students to a table with erosion materials set up
explain how demonstration will simulate rain on the three environments
ask kids to talk about what they think will happen and why? Encourage them to discuss among
themselves

Pass out handout for them to formally make a prediction explain we will write and draw what we
observe to support our predictions

2) The body of the lesson

Tell students to carefully observe what happens and ask them questions throughout the
demonstration
I will have bottles set up on their side with two cups of soil in them each . One bottle will have
dead leaves on top of the soil one will have grass with roots in the soil, one will have nothing on
top.
I will pour water into one of the bottles enough so that the water will overflow and pour into the
cup by the bottles spout filling the cup halfway
Then
Give them a few minutes to draw labelled diagrams of what they observe
Have a group discussion about
what happened?
why we think it happened
and if it supports our predictions we made?
How was it different from what we predicted? Why might that be?

I will repeat these steps with all three bottles giving students and opportunity to look at all three
cups of water . I will ask questions encouraging students to compare the three cups of water
such as

Which cup is the clearest

Which cup do you think would be the safest to drink
Was your prediction correct
Why do you think this cup is the clearest , what do you think happened
Wait! You are going to add water at this point, right? You need to put that in! How will you ensure
that this is a "fair test" (control variables)? How much water will be added to each?How will the
water be added (deluge? gentle rain?) Where will it fall? Near the end (bottom) of the bottle, all
over the surface? These details will be important.

I included more details about the sequence of the experiment the amount of water and soil I will
used and the questions asked after each step

Closure
Watch short clip on erosion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5Rp9MJJGCU&t=91s
What does this clip tell us about erosion?
Does this help you understand what happened our demonstration why or why not ?
Ask how or if changes what they think about what they observed?

Which environment do you think had the most erosion?

Really important. Did you explain (define) erosion anywhere in this lesson. Just a simple
explanation of something they have all observed after rain.
I defined erosion in the video clip rather than verbally and then reminded them that the water in
our demonstration was supposed to represent rain. They were then able to use erosion to
explain what they had observed in the demonstration without much further prompting on my part

Which had the least?

How do you know?

-Ask what this tells us about the real environment if it seems they grasp the basic concept of
erosion

-Ask students to write whether their prediction was correct and two reasons why or why not at
the bottom of the hand out .

Are these oral questions, or an exit slip as part of your main worksheet?
These are discussion questions that I am using to facilitate a peer discussion

I cut the two reasons and we had a discussion instead where the group verbally evaluated
whether the predictions each group remember made turned out to be true or not. I decided I
wanted the handout to focus more on observations rather than the accuracy of students
predictions
Assessment of the goals/objectives

listed above

-Completeness and detail of written observation and diagrams drawn

- Written Predictions made and how they were supported
-How often students participated in discussion and whether they were able to make connections
between observed evidence and their ideas
OK. So the part above is oral. I like the open ended exit ticket, but that feels like writing in two
places - a lot - right at the end. Could you put the prediction questions on the exit slip instead,
and then just ask for one thing learned and one question?

I got rid of the exit ticket I planned so that students didnt feel overwhelmed with writing and
keep the focus on the investigation itself . I ended up costing the idea of an exit activity all
together in order to end the lesson with the students discussing the video clip they just viewed
how it relates to our demo to see if they could make the connection.

Describe how you will assess students with respect to your goals. What evidence of student

Learning wills you gather (written work, class discussion, observations) and how will you gather
it? Explain how this evidence will help you assess progress toward your goals.
Anticipating students' responses and your possible responses

In terms of management I anticipate some students may have focusing issues I intend to sit
these two students closest to the demonstration and possibly have one assist me in pouring the
water into the bottles :
I also anticipate some students will be more talkative than others and attempt to dominate the
discussion. Because its a small group setting I plan to establish norms such as we need to give
everyone a chance to speak and reiterating I want to hear what someone I havent heard from
yet . and asking students personally D. W, what do you think/
I also hope open ended questions and a small group setting will give students more courage to
speak up
I anticipate students will really latch onto any right answer and not view the process of coming to
their own conclusion as less important . I need to really stress my expectations and objective
that we are working together

Accommodations
One of my students has reading issue so I plan to verbally explain the instructions to the class
before we take observations so he is able to understand the written directions

I plan to leave extra space for observations so that students who are more adept at writing can
add more details
I also will bring colored pencils if students have extra time to use on the diagrams if they finish
early