ACTEM - SEED Packets 126-143

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.

Welcome to the Invention Convention! Throughout this Internet- based and student developed project, students research famous inventors and their inventions; and demonstrate a deep understanding by writing a report, scripts for interviews and creating iMovie documentaries. They also create and showcase Web-based multimedia invention logs, communicate via e-mail with actual inventors and teach and inform others.

A digital motor skills portfolio allows students to use technology to break down their own motor skills into a frame-by-frame evaluation of skill checkpoints. Seeing themselves perform the motor skills during a simplified activity adds visual understanding to the students’ kinesthetic understanding of their own movements. Feedback from others may also be used to improve a skill by focusing on the critical elements of the skill. Students use their laptops to edit out everyone but themselves using iMovie. Their movie includes titles with the checkpoints for each of the three different motor skills of their choice. The final product, an individual highlight video, serves as evidence (subject to review by the instructor) of meeting the targeted standard.

Through historical fiction, primary source materials, selected Web sites, a field trip to Salem and documentary videos, students explore the Puritan community of Salem Village in Massachusetts, 1692. During this dark period, intolerance and mass hysteria resulted in accusations of witchcraft. In less than two years, 19 innocent men and women were hanged, one was pressed to death and hundreds of others were imprisoned and impoverished. Following their studies, further student inquiry is inspired by responding to their reading and field experiences through descriptive writings, novel reflections and completion of one of several projects for class presentation. These include the creation of video plays, multi-media documentaries, PowerPoint and artwork displays.

Students create a quilt that can be given to the school at the end of their year. Each student contributes a small square that contains a digital picture, a scanned image of his or her hand and original poetry. Students learn to understand that images and words communicate. Students use the elements and principles of art with a variety of resources, materials and techniques to design the quilt squares.

In It’s Not Easy Being Green, students connect art, writing and technology to communicate feelings as told from the point of view of the frog at various stages of its life cycle. They create the colorful backdrop and frog characters and write a script that corresponds to the emotions they have expressed. These pictures are digitally photographed and imported into an iMovie video or another multimedia presentation, integrating artistic expression with voiceover and animation to create an enhanced tool for communication. In this way, students demonstrate what they have expressed and learned.

Many children seem unconnected to the land. They do not know where their food comes from, and how important it is to take care of the soil. To expose students to the passion of gardening, they maintain gardens at their school. They also create a digital diary to explain how and why they do this, which is then used to teach the incoming students what they did, how they did it and, most importantly, why they take the time to care for the gardens. Students also share their digital diaries on a class Web site.

My Best Shot engages middle school students in improving their basketball skills. Students learn the knowledge and skill techniques behind proper execution of a basketball shot. Videotaping or photographing the shot provides students with a method of analyzing current personal practices against preferred best practices. Students who participate in this process learn about the acquisition of motor skills and how skills can progress through technical information and practice. Videotaped segments or photos help students see the reality of their technique and understand that skill improvement is a lifelong endeavor. Involving students in reflective practice to solve motor-skill problems helps them develop a critical eye.

Can you imagine being in a dust storm? Most students today have difficulty relating to what it would be like to live in the Dust Bowl era. Through this thematic, Web-based unit set around the novel, “Out of the Dust,” and the poetry from “Something Permanent,” students construct important background knowledge about life in this time period. They apply this knowledge to their reading through literature circles and poetry interpretations of photos taken during the Dust Bowl era. They research a self-selected aspect of the time period for an expository essay, and present their original poetry in a multi- media PowerPoint presentation that incorporates text, photos, special effects and oral presentation skills.

Ants are amazing creatures! Did you know that the combined weight of all the ants in the world outweighs the combined weight of all the humans in the world? “How Observ-ant Are You?” is a virtual field trip that opens students’ eyes to the world beneath their feet and in their very own backyards. It focuses on two stops of a larger, seven-tour stop virtual field trip, and hones students’ observation and scientific communication skills as it integrates a variety of exciting and motivational technology tools. Scientists who study about ants are called myrmecologists. Students become junior myrmecologists by the end of this virtual field trip.

If you have ever read a Robert Munsch story, you know that they just cry out to be read time and time again. This unit takes a closer look at the author’s style and purpose. These stories become the mentor text used in a comprehensive, primary-level writing unit. The lessons integrate meaningful computer tasks with the development of basic story elements and the six-trait writing model. First-graders learn how to use Kidspiration software to craft their own pieces of writing. Elementary teachers will eat this unit right up!

They may not be able to steer the sled, but in this unit students assume the persona of actual mushers in the Alaskan Iditarod race, tracking race progress each day on the Internet. Students synthesize race data through creative writing to produce a daily journal of the race, written from the musher’s point of view. Prior to the race, students correspond with their musher via mail or e-mail. To acquire background knowledge for this interdisciplinary unit, small groups research various aspects of Arctic culture, geography, biomes, wildlife and Iditarod history. They compile their research into non-fiction big books, which they use to present the research topic in a student-led lesson. The unit culminates with a “Jeopardy” game based upon race events and lessons taught from the non-fiction books.

Egyptian Adventure introduces high school students to the fascinating world of Ancient Egypt: its culture, art, architecture and religion. A variety of museum Web sites piques their interest. Students view a video on Egypt, read about Egyptian art in their art history text, complete several Web quests that involve visiting Web sites for a number of museums, learn to photograph their artwork with a digital camera, learn how to create their own Web page about Egyptian art and how to use a scanner. In addition, they use their knowledge of Egyptian art, customs and iconography to create a painted sarcophagus cover and a small clay tomb sculpture for an imaginary person.

Social Studies, Maine Studies, and Geography students will chose one of three Maine communities and interview people using geography as a guide. They will write a Geoportrait about that community using their primary research information. They will then analyze and synthesize their information to show how the culture of each community differs from neighboring Maine communities even though they share similar environments and resources. Working in teams they will write and produce a script that shows how each community has its own unique culture. Students will videotape their script, add pictures and music to support their written piece and create an iMovie as their finished product.

Today we can click into the world via our remote or mouse for immediate information. While instant communication through the media and the Internet excites us, we need to be critical readers, listeners and interpreters of the information we receive. We must understand not only the message, but also who’s sending it. Are we getting straight facts, or are the words and images being manipulated by the messenger? Persuasive language is a positive tool as long as we know we’re being persuaded. Truth Spin challenges students to actively discover the difference between fact, valid opinion and outright bias while also investigating the intriguing relationship between writer and reader and speaker and audience.

You have received a fellowship from the Smithsonian to assist in research for two renowned historians who are developing a show called Portrait of an Age. They need you to create a visual presentation illuminating pivotal events in a period of history. Events and their connections must be clear and outcomes must be interpreted through one or more themes in history: the arts, the economy, social life, political systems , etc. The problem is how to display the story in a museum space, keeping the audience hooked. You have to balance text with image, balance fact with opinion, and tell a story over time thematically, which can be understood without the need for an interpreter.

This unit combines civic stewardship, visual arts and technology to increase student motivation and to add meaning to student learning. Students build a partnership with community members through designing a logo for a local park. Technology and the Internet serve as primary vehicles for community involvement and collaboration with students. After several peer and large-group critiques, students put their logos in Web-ready form; the logos are posted on the school’s home page for the community, staff and students to vote. The students present their designs to the park’s committee. Finally, the committee chooses the design that best represents the organization to use for their permanent logo.

How do you get students interested in and aware of the geology around them, and to understand the processes that shape our earth? This unit takes students outside to actually see and discover the interesting geology here in Maine. Students learn basic concepts initially in the classroom – rock cycle, rock types/minerals, plate tectonics, volcanoes, and geology history – which come alive on a trip to local landmarks. Here, the students observe Maine's geology and develop a Geology Field Guide for the area, which can be distributed to visitors who want to learn more about Maine's geology.

Students from the science and art departments co-create a trail, do ecology research and digitally produce trail markers for a community-based, nonprofit organization. This project combines field ecology and digital imaging, encompasses hands- on field research, Internet research, data analysis, measurements and observations. Students subsequently use that information, as well as digital pictures and scans of plant material, to create unique and creative visual products with digital imaging software. The final products are used both in hard copy as trail markers and as Internet graphics for an educational Web site. The process includes substantive reflection and critique by the students.