ACTEM - SEED Packets 1-25

This project is designed to give the students a greater awareness of the natural resources in the region, while they experience in a real environment the science that they have learned in the classroom. Data collection is used as a tool for extending the classroom beyond the walls of the school into the community. The process of understanding the impact of science on society and the environment begins with the collection of "real" data. This data is then used by the students during the year when studying various chemical processes. Many times the students do not understand chemistry's role in everyday living. For them to become aware of the problems that chemicals can cause they have to understand how information about the environment is collected. Students learn while they also make a useful contribution to society. This understanding is one of the life skills necessary for the future protection of the environment in the State of Maine.

Electronic Portfolios: A Journey Through Learning is an authentic, performance-based, instructionally appropriate method of assessment in which students use technology to digitally document and exhibit their school progress, effort, achievement and development. Imagine yourself sitting in front of a computer screen. A button near the top shows a profile of one of your students. You click on it, and another window appears. You see a larger image of the student, and next to it, an autobiographical sketch which tells you about his family, his interests, and his goals for the year. Some of the words in the All ABOUT ME piece are highlighted in red. You click on one of the words, and a new window appears. The window contains four pictures of a tropical place; four people, including your student, wave to you in a few of these photos. The pictures are numbered one through four. You see that your mouse icon changes when you cross the pictures, letting you know that these photos are also links. You click on one. A small window appears, describing the place and what the student did there with his family. You close the window and proceed to go on a virtual vacation with the student.

Space: the last frontier? Not when students explore the planets! In this unit of study, students access specific Web sites to gather information about our solar system, then together create a multimedia slide show which demonstrates their knowledge. Each student writes a script about a specific planet, including such facts as distance from the sun, size, temperature, type of planet and number of moons. Many facts are then put into a spreadsheet and graphed, with students writing explanations of the graphs. This unit of study provides a unique opportunity for young students to use the computer to gather relevant information from the Internet, represent the knowledge gained in their own voices and pictures, and produce a collaborative classroom presentation.

foundation for asset building in children. The purpose of this learning activity is two fold. The only way to give a reader the actual powerfulness of the activity is to weave you through two paths that are within this project and how they have been intertwined to benefit students. The first path is the Learning Result connection, where students use oral language, writing and technology to show attainment of the performance indicators. The second path is loss of parent support in an elementary school. As you read this story, you will realize how students can bring school and community together by being clear and effective communicators and responsible and involved citizens.

Children and many adults are fascinated by the strange, paranormal and unusual. You might find them reading popular materials about UFOs, the Loch Ness monster, ghosts or magicians - yet there is often a scientific explanation or even scientific research on such topics. However, students who read such stories and information often do not have the skills to differentiate science from sensationalism. This unit is designed to be implemented by middle level science, technology and/or language arts teachers, ideally in October since Halloween forms a natural connection. This unit's primary purpose is to practice report writing skills and improve students' scientific research skills to dispel or validate the truth within the myth. Resources are located and critiqued for bias and fact vs. opinion. Students take notes, write a short report synthesizing their findings and develop an annotated bibliography all of which is scored using a rubric based on their task assessment list. Adjustments are made in the rubric scoring for special needs students. Emphasis is on accomplishing the Learning Results performance indicators that are included in this unit. This unit's second goal is to provide students with the skills to communicate to others that “the truth is out there” via the worldwide web. Students place their annotated bibliographies with both print and electronic resources complete with age appropriateness labels on their own WEIRD FILE Web page. These FILES are connected to the school's WEIRD FILES Web page linked to this school's main Web page. Students learn to activate the electronic links to their electronic resources so that other students can begin similar research using the listed bibliographic references. These Web pages are also evaluated using a rubric. This unit takes about three to four weeks depending upon how much integration a team of teachers wishes to include.

"Whoo Whoo Wants to Learn About Owls" is a multimedia science unit designed to make owls come alive in a primary classroom. The heart of the unit is a teacher-designed Web site which includes a wide array of information such as owl facts, a photo gallery, owl calls, a book list and an interactive quiz for students. A variety of student activities accompany the Web site including printing owl masks and using real owl pellets for a bone sorting activity. At the end of the unit, students use a draw program to create their own owl picture. These pictures are put together into a slide show accompanied by a recording of each child telling the teacher one thing s/he learned about owls.

Nature's Calling Cards allows students to create a visual product that demonstrates their learning and understanding. They produce their own trading cards that incorporate language skills, technology skills and science indicators, as a great way to culminate a unit on scientific classification. Making trading cards, however, could be used in most any curriculum area where information is collected and visuals are available, such as state facts, biographical sketches and mathematical formulas.

The White Pine Growth Project (WPGP) is a science/math activity in which students collect field data on White Pine annual growth, graph the data on a spreadsheet program, form hypotheses, research, analyze data, and finally write conclusions. The students actually measure the White Pines’ annual new growth in the field and return to the classroom to display their data in a spreadsheet graphing program. These graphs are analyzed and hypotheses are developed about predicting the past precipitation trends in the field study area. Finally the students research using online resources to prove or disprove their hypothesis in a written conclusion. The project is suitable for grades 5 through 8.

In this unit of study students create a web site that can be used by the class as a reference guide for the remainder of the course. The web site contains links to sites that students decide contain helpful information about topics they will be studying. This idea came while putting together a resource web page for a class. As the teacher surfed the web for appropriate and usable sites, he realized what a terrific skill it was to be able to evaluate information for validity and applicability. By building their own resource web page, students learn this valuable skill to extract useful information from the vast uncertainties on the ‘Net. In addition, they use the product they collectively create to research future topics. Finally, by creating and publishing web pages students better understand how the Internet works, which leads to more efficient utilization of the web as a resource.

Fourth grade students act as researchers during the course of this unit. Their specific job is to collect as much information as they can about their topic using a minimum of two different Web sites, as well as a minimum of three texts from the town and/or school library. Students are also encouraged to research videos, conduct interviews or correspond with scientists on line. Once they have collected the necessary information to complete a data sheet about their animal, they write a creative report about it.

My third grade class and I developed an Arctic food web using the computer programs Hyperstudio and Claris Homepage. First choose an animal from our Arctic Index. Once you choose an animal, you will discover that you are on a page containing a detailed drawing of the animal, as well as a paragraph about the animal. After you read the information about the animal, you may continue to travel through the food web by doing one of three things. You may click on the option, “What I Eat”, the option, “What Eats Me”, or you may return to the Arctic Index and begin again. You will quickly realize that the polar bear, grizzly bear, and the Arctic wolf are top consumers, and that all food webs must begin with a producer. If you need an overview of what a food web is before you start exploring ours, you may choose to read the information we wrote as a class. There you will learn that all animals depend on each other, and each is dependent upon the producers. If you are not quite sure where the Arctic is or what sets it apart from the biome that you live in, you may choose to read our Arctic Introduction. After you have traveled through our web, you may want to test your new knowledge by going on our Scavenger Hunt. If you would like to find out more information about the polar regions, you may want to look at the resources that we used, and check out one of the books from your local library, or browse one of the links to the many Web sites that we categorized by third and fourth grade performance indicators for you. If you loved our Web site and would like to make one like it, you might read the instructions for how we made our site. And last, if you are a teacher or a parent, you may want to read about how our project fit the the standards set by the Maine Learning Results.

Technology is a large part of our world and is constantly changing. Teachers need to be current in technology use yet have limited time to learn the necessary new skills. This staff development resource provides an online training site for teachers and staff to learn how to use the Internet and how to integrate Web sites into their existing curriculum. Included is a Technology Survival Guide in notebook form, which contains written explanations and directions for all equipment in the building, trouble shooting hints and resources for technology use. Professional developers and technology coordinators will find that these materials provide teachers with a place to begin the technological journey, either individually or in groups.

Genetics is an ideal topic for study in high school Biology. This is a hands-on, lab based genetics unit focusing on real-life applications and decision making. This course is taught in 80 minute blocks on an alternating Day 1 / Day 2 schedule for a full year. Biology is a required course for graduation from our high school. The course is organized into 6 major units, with genetics falling in the second semester due to the complexity of the material. The genetics unit lasts 6 -8weeks. It has three basic sections: Structure and function of DNA and RNA Heredity Bioethical issues The unit is based around three essential questions. What makes me the way I am? How will genetics affect my life? Because we can, should we? Please see attachment #1 Genetics Unit Overview for a detailed explanation of goals and activities.

Primary classrooms underutilize the vast array of resources available on the Internet. Young children can use the multiple steps needed to access the Internet with appropriate adult supervision and the careful development of technological skills. "Life on the Salt Marsh" is a Web-lesson designed with primary children in mind. It opens with a digital projection of a Web site, which shows aerial photographs of a local salt marsh and beckons the children to take a virtual tour of a salt marsh. When this tour is over, the children choose to study a number of organisms from the lists of salt marsh inhabitants on the site. Each creature is linked separately to carefully screened Web sites specific to that particular creature or family of creatures. Students document their findings on recording sheets. Parents and/or community volunteers and older students provide additional classroom support to the youngsters as they learn the skills and content.

This unit is an interdisciplinary, thematic unit used to introduce students to the world of William Shakespeare and study of human relationships using the play "Romeo and Juliet." Students are asked to integrate the disciplines of English, science, psychology, and history into a coherent package. This unit seeks to answer the question, "Why do people act the way they do?" During the course of this unit, students complete a Shakespeare life project, write position papers, take on a movie project, and write an interdisciplinary essay.

Students form themselves into production companies and produce short multimedia documentaries, or newspapers if they choose, on themes in American History with a local angle. The teacher becomes the CEO of the holding company which owns all their companies and the equipment they use. Interactions between teacher/CEO and students/employees are as businesslike as possible in all aspects of production. Student employees have specific roles, job expectations and responsibilities. First quarter projects are basic, allowing students/employees to familiarize themselves with the technological tools. Over the course of the unit, students learn how to function as a group in a company model, and they learn state-of-the-art digital photo-editing and video-editing technology. Students also learn how much thought and planning goes into a two or three minute film!

“It’s a Revolution!” sends students on a quest that develops their research skills while they prepare a multimedia presentation. Using the Revolutionary War as a focus, students choose a topic of interest to them. They then research the topic fully and prepare a multimedia presentation fro the rest of the class. Students show relationships between events and conditions of the world during the Revolutionary War period. They highlight the reasons leading to the conflict and the effects that result. They examine relationships of both the events and people of the time as it relates to their topic choice. The presentation provides the vehicle for students to effectively communicate what they have learned.

Experiencing Maine Government Through Power Point Presentations is a wonderful activity that can be shared with teachers, students, parents and other members of the community. This Maine studies unit is an innovative way to teach Maine State Government, as required in Maine Learning Results, while also contributing to an evening event for parents and community members. Ambitious and lofty, the Power Point Presentations are designed to "wow" other students and those who attend "Maine Night."

The Retrospective Magazine Project is designed as a cooperative activity involving an entire class of fifteen to twenty-five students. The class as a whole collaborates on designing a news magazine much like Time or Newsweek. Students choose a topic from the class subject area to report on in the form of a magazine article. Each student researches, prepares a draft, and finalizes the article over the course of the school year semester. Students are also required to work on a separate part of the magazine as well, such as the cover, table of contents, letters to the editor, advertisements, and a back-page opinion essay. The project focuses on the technological aspects of the work involved rather than the pure research and writing. Among the various processes used in creating the article are formatting an article using word processing software (Microsoft Word, WordPerfect, etc.), downloading, copying and pasting photos from online and multimedia resources properly into the article using captions, scanning photos from separate resources into the article, and even morphing personal pictures into advertisements with the use of a scanner or digital camera.

This project is appropriate as a ninth or tenth grade social studies elective, but it can easily be taught successfully in grades six through twelve. The project may be adapted for lower level learners by reducing the length of the assignments and providing some or all of the Web site addresses, rather than students conducting searches for the information on their own. The length, age level and ability level are all adaptable.

How does a Foreign Language teacher integrate cultural units into the classroom and still continue to build language proficiency? Studying visual artists of the Spanish-speaking world provides a great opportunity to do all of this and to incorporate the use of technology as well. By combining Internet research, Power Point slide presentations, and a Web page with hyperlinks to those presentations, this three to four week unit introduces students to the world of Hispanic art. Each student chooses an artist, researches his/her life and work on the Internet, creates a Power Point presentation, and shares her/his expertise with classmates through an illustrated oral report in Spanish.

Bookworms and Shutterbugs enhances the literacy development of students and encourages artistic expression. This project ties to content standards in English/Language Arts and Visual and Performing Arts. The children explore and use a digital camera to produce pictures, add text and create classroom picture books. The pictures are used as writing prompts. The class books allow for a variety of reading venues (independent reading, reading at home with parents, shared reading and book extensions).