ACTEM - SEED Packets 101-125

A total of 143 Packets are now available for use in your classroom. Each Packet has been linked to Maine’s Learning Results and includes a detailed description of how the Unit of Study/Learning Activity was implemented. The Packets span all content areas and grade levels.

The Packets are available in PDF format. (To view a PDF file you’ll need the FREE Adobe Acrobat reader.) The snapshot descriptions of these packets are searchable using the search field at the top left of this window. Please make sure that Site is checked in the search options and you need to use the advanced search to get anything to show up.

Aprons and pearls, beer and recliners, welfare and divorces: “We Ain’t No Sitcom Family” explores the evolving relationship between the television set and the family unit. From the 1950s to the present, students engage in a study of American culture with television serving as a primary focus. “Leave It to Beaver” and “The Cosby Show” open doorways to discussions of social landscapes and artistic value. WebQuests, on-line discussion boards, multimedia presentations, digital photography, and critical reviews lead students to the culminating assessment: a sitcom script, storyboard, set design, and analysis starring the students’ families to demonstrate their understanding of television’s reality.

challenges students to use their knowledge of geometric figures and terms to create their own design using the computer program Geometer’s Sketchpad. By constructing polygons and performing rotations, translations and reflections using the program, students combine these elements to create their own original quilt square. A “Quilting Bee” wraps up the project as students use their original designs to create a wall hanging.

Building a better understanding of the structure of the Internet and how to use it for research is the goal of this educational exploration. Students use the Internet via seldom used methods to increase their knowledge of the medium, either independently or with guidance from a teacher. Discipline- specific content can be added to enrich individual curricula.

Let your students demonstrate their science learning by creating documentation panels, which can be used as a culminating activity to any science unit. Individual panels reflect both process and product. As such, they provide students with a framework for scaffolding and synthesize the discrete elements of the unit into a complete final product, which then serves as a tool for teachers to evaluate student learning. Documentation Panels allow for varied learning styles and multiple intelligences because each panel is as unique as the student who creates it.

Student assessment takes on a new twist when elementary students pop in a CD of themselves reading systematically selected benchmarked books. Their multi-sensory portfolio becomes evidence of their journey through the learning-to-read process. The book collection provides valuable information about the student’s book selection, use of strategies, decoding skills and fluency rate. Students, teachers, and parents use the reading portfolio to revisit stories and to reflect on the student’s overall growth in reading.

Students find mathematical concepts in an unlikely place – art master works – and in the process learn a new and alternate medium to communicate math concepts. With mathematics concepts and skills, students in this integrated unit of study use the visual arts to communicate mathematical understanding. They use a digital camera and a computer to create their own art. Working alone or collaboratively, the students use written and oral presentations to present what they have learned and student evaluators suggest alternative approaches to presenting their learning.

In Clay Animation Storytelling middle school students synthesize art, technology, computer and storytelling skills. Students produce an initial video to familiarize themselves with the animation process and tools. Next, they create a short clay animation video using clay figures, scenery, digital cameras and video software. For the final product, students adapt a fairy tale into a script and complete all phases of the production of a clay-animated story.

How can society achieve world peace? Who do you think should be Maine’s next governor? How do you convince people to recycle? That’s the art of persuasion! Students write speeches and create PowerPoint presentations using persuasive language to convince their audience of their point of view. This combination of written, technical, visual and oral presentation is a sure-fire way to get people thinking.

Students explore how their school fits in the world in this unit designed to complement their study of Maine history. Students explore community events, history, economy, government, their geographical region, and create web pages for their school. Student groups are responsible for researching their topic, organizing and synthesizing information, finding historical photos and newspaper articles for scanning, constructing web pages and publishing as well as updating the page through the district server.

Students who participate in this WebQuest take on the roles of a European immigrant family who came to America via Ellis Island in the late 1800s. As students investigate each portion of the journey, they write journal entries from the point of view of their character. The journal entries are transformed into Web pages that display the students’ work. Each student also creates a digital recording of their vocal performance while they read their journal entries as their assigned character. The recordings are embedded into the HTML of their pages so that viewers can listen as well as read the student work.

Have you ever wondered how fast roller coasters go? This project takes you to roller coasters all over the world through the Internet. Students research roller coasters that interest them. They use a spreadsheet to record track length and duration of each ride, create formulas to calculate average speed, and then graph the data. This unit motivates students to learn real-life application for order of operations, formulas and how to work with a spreadsheet.

Understanding the Past Through Poetry engages students in contributing to their town’s historic celebrations. Each community in Maine is unique, its character having grown and developed throughout its history. This project allows students to learn about that history through the study of specific sites within their town, to use poetic elements in their writing, to develop their use of the writing process and to use technology in a meaningful way. The final product is a Hyperstudio project highlighting student photographs and poems about historic sites in their town.

Click on one icon and a student’s multiple intelligence profile pops up, with an explanatory essay. Select the icon of the dancing dragon and up pops a writing piece demonstrating a student’s progress toward an English Language Arts standard. Choose yet another icon and the student’s explanation of how his or her work has demonstrated coverage of a Science and Technology standard opens. Beginning with the completion of a multiple intelligences survey, through reflection on their work in various classes, students create digital portfolios showcasing their multiple intelligences as well as their progress toward the Learning Results’ Guiding Principles, standards and indicators. This computer-based portfolio project culminates in a student presentation of growth and reflection during parent conferences.

What makes researching the 20th century fun, meaningful and rewarding? Imagine a festive, high-energy event inspiring high-quality student products. It’s fun, it’s challenging, and it works! During the 20th Century Slide Show unit, social studies students practice research, note taking, citing works and writing skills while learning about 20th-century topics and constructing illustrated Hyperstudio slides. The slides are added to stacks, which can be viewed by decade and then by the categories Politics, Arts & Entertainment, Fads & Fashions, Transportation, Sports and Science & Technology. The stacks from past years serve as an introduction for the research unit, and then the expanded stacks are used as a resource as students continue their study of the 20th century throughout the year.

Students journey through multi-faceted tasks to compare and contrast the works, styles and trends of art throughout history. After participating in “time travel” research, timeline poster illustration and the selection of art media to create original self-portraits in a distinct style, students collaborate to work with digital videotape, a medium of which they are major consumers, yet have limited knowledge of authorship. Students create a video interview featuring an “artist,” a “reporter” and a “videographer,” while developing the skills of storyboarding, script writing, and filming techniques. Using editing software such as iMovie, students transform raw footage into polished videos complete with special effects and music. The unit culminates with “Opening Night,” inviting peers, staff, parents, community members, local reporters and professional artists for authentic feedback.

The Holocaust and Me? stimulates youth to think about societal issues of discrimination, civil rights, genocide, diversity, racism and hate crimes. This unit brings students on a journey, beginning with learning about the Holocaust of 1939- 1945 to thinking about how their actions affect others. Students learn about the causes and effects of the Holocaust in world history, Maine and the United States. Students choose a particular subtopic of the Holocaust of interest to them, and use a variety of sources and reference materials to delve deeper. Students download and scan images from various to contribute to the making of a group PowerPoint, which also includes their own original visual art or poetry. Students gain an understanding of how the arts affect and are affected by different cultures. Students share their opinions of how they can make a difference in the world through standing up to intolerance and showing acts of kindness.

Why My Town is a Good Place to Live integrates the visual and performing arts, English Language arts and Maine studies. Students use technology to create a 60- second, public service commercial. The project gives students a sense of self-worth about their community. Students use a variety of research skills, including interviewing and note taking, to gather information for the commercial. A variety of teaching strategies address all types of learners, including students with special needs. The community views the final products at a premiere, and then the students post their products on the school Web site.

From overachieving students who take every assignment to infinity and beyond, fidgety students who must DO something in order to survive, students with low selfconfidence who won’t look you in the eye, students who know everything and seek to prove it, students who don’t want to come to school because they “don’t see the point” – this is the unit for ALL of them. Hands-on, day-to-day business operations introduce the learner to business principles. This service-learning business challenge can grow to include the entire community. Students work collaboratively toward raising funds for a local camp for children with life-threatening illnesses through a variety of business ventures.

In this online, multimedia unit, students view a QuickTime video developed by using various clips from World War II, and they receive a brief overview of what they will learn. Throughout their study, students make connections to speeches and music from World War II, photographs, films and movies, community connections, Web sites, sources and standards. Seven assignments guide the student through the different phases of World War II. This unit also includes a community service project and presentations from individuals representing the Maine Human Rights Center, sharing their expertise.

Touilleries, Gnomes and Chicks, Oh, My! Join students as they enter the musical world of Modest Mussorgsky! Students prepare for a field trip to hear Mussorgsky’s composition, “Pictures at an Exhibition,” by studying his life and the music dedicated to his artist friend, Victor Hartmann. This unit is sequential, and begins with research and a review of the foundational elements of music. The music lessons are integrated with math, social studies, language arts and technology. The students work in the computer lab making colorful graphs, using a digital camera, traditional cameras, viewing slides presentations and listening to the music. The students discover that Modest Mussorgsky, a man born of a noble family, composed music to celebrate the common people of Russia.

Photography students create images of their hometown, incorporating some personal aspect of their relationship to their town in the image. This image is posted on the Web site, and the students begin a dialogue with students from two schools in another state. They discuss how the images depict small-town Maine, how the innercity students interpret the images and how the two groups of students have divergent views of the same artistic works. In addition to the creative production of the images, the photo students critique their own work, the work of their peers, write an artist’s statement of intent regarding the image, and participate in a dialogue reflecting on how the culture of the audience affects the interpretation of works of art.

Internet Book Buddies involves primary-age children e-mailing freshmen students from a local college. Each child is assigned a student who is currently enrolled in a children’s literature class. The classroom teacher and the college professor select two texts, which form the basis for the Internet “book chat.” Both groups of students are directed by their supervising teachers. The children achieve the following objectives through weekly e mail contact: introduction to new vocabulary, character development, plot, sharing responses to quality literature and recounting events and important details from the text. The children develop an excitement for reading and writing, while the college students experience their first teaching contact with elementary students.

How would you like to journey across the vast Atlantic Ocean, traverse deep into the heart of Africa, and experience life as a family member of an African culture? This cultural and physical geography unit provides the vehicle for that simulated adventure. Students assume the identities of one of 11 African ethnic groups and work with their peers as members of a family, using the reflective inquiry approach, to: formulate questions about what life will be like in their new homes; hypothesize, conduct research to find answers to their questions; draw conclusions; share their findings via a PowerPoint presentation or a Web site; make generalizations about the effects of geography on culture; and apply these generalizations to a new culture as their assessment.

One powerful way to learn about the history of a town is the cleanup, restoration and research of community cemeteries. This project includes instruction in basic research techniques, learning to use the town’s vital statistics records, learning to use online and microfilm census records and accessing military records from the Maine State Library. The Maine Memory Network provides training to all the students in scanning cemetery-related images, which are then included in the Network.

In this unit on animal adaptations, students have the opportunity to study a specific animal and how it adapts to its environment. Students research and write a report on their chosen animal, describing how it lives and survives in its biome. Students create a narrated skit that shows, through movement and body language, at least three of the animal’s survival adaptation skills. Students film the skits using a digital video camera. They then edit the skits using iMovie and save them as a Web presentation. The project ends with a student Web site that includes an animal report and iMovie for each student.