The Great American Eclipse #4530

Agreed. Introducing any new tool with new ways of sorting and displaying data will present a challenge, even for advanced classes. Additionally, time is always restricted and a teacher really should be fairly well-versed in the new tools in order to help troubleshoot.

:grin: Yep! One thing students are very used to these days is having instant access to answers and for non advanced classes the amount of detail in this lesson might be overwhelming.

Where does this lesson fit in with your curriculum?
This doesn’t fit with my curriculum, but I love all the info on solar eclipse and using the concord consortium data tool

Which part or parts of the lesson would your students need extra support in order to be successful?
I will have to check with my grade 5 and 5 science/math teacher. I don’t know where they are and what supports they would need with this sort of data manipulation.

If you were to teach this lesson to your class, describe your role during the class. What does a successful teacher actively do during this lesson?
I would use the tool with something simple first. Use it with actual data the kids have collected. Otherwise I think it would overwhelming. Then use it with the eclipse data… then use with the solar oven data.

If you were to teach this lesson to your class, describe your student’s role during the class. What does “student success” look like?
I would judge success by being able to use this tool with other data sets and to determine what you need to collect- how to display data and what it actually means.

This lesson absolutely fits with my curriculum as we talk of the Earth-Moon-Sun system and their interactions. My high school students should be able to complete all the analysis with limited support. During this lesson, I would review the positions of the Earth-Moon-Sun and the areas where they would experience totality, in the umbra and partiality, in the penumbra. This is an excellent lesson on data analysis and graphing as well as interpreting the results which are skills needed as they continue their academic careers as well as on standardized testing.

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Where does this lesson fit in with your curriculum (if the lesson is not a fit for the class you teach, how could the lesson be modified so that it is applicable to your curriculum)?
We are currently studying earth-moon system and the eclipse fit right in. In Heber, UT, we got a great view of the blood moon eclipse recently, so its easily relatable.
Which part or parts of the lesson would your students need extra support in order to be successful?
The data collection part was tricky for me. We do work on a lot a data collection and graphing, but I doubt I would use this with my classes
If you were to teach this lesson to your class, describe your role during the class. What does a successful teacher actively do during this lesson?
I would scale back the technical stuff or find a different was to incorporate a more simplified data collection procedure.
If you were to teach this lesson to your class, describe your student’s role during the class. What does “student success” look like?
Student success looks like students are able to take the project from start to finish and grasp where the information comes from that ends up on all of these graphs they see.

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Where does this lesson fit in with your curriculum (if the lesson is not a fit for the class you teach, how could the lesson be modified so that it is applicable to your curriculum)?
It is perfectly aligned with 6th grade NGSS. Moon phases, to include phenomena, are covered during our study of celestial movement. I will definitely be having students rotate into this kit during eclipse studies. This would also hit every cross-cutting concept in mathematics with scale, the proportionality of data, and modeling.
Which part or parts of the lesson would your students need extra support in order to be successful?
Students would need extra support in areas of CODAP. Some students may also need direction during the inquiry and finding credible information.
If you were to teach this lesson to your class, describe your role during the class. What does a successful teacher actively do during this lesson?
I would act as a facilitator in this lesson, providing key moments for inquiry and expansion of mindset. A successful teacher would monitor student groups to ensure students are maintaining predictions and continuing a path forward. Teachers should be asking prompting questions so students remain curious while maintaining an inquiry mindset.
If you were to teach this lesson to your class, describe your student’s role during the class. What does “student success” look like?
Students would play an exploratory role during this lesson. Student success would be understanding how to apply variables, constants, and how to conduct an experiment while keeping it organized and recorded. More specifically, I believe being able to move forward through adverse times. I would measure success here by utilizing a series of informal questioning or reflection, such as Flipgrid or another individual response system.

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I do have a student asking to use the BL Kit for their STEM Fair presentation and study! I thought that was funny you said that at the end.

I do a major PBL at the end of our space unit and hope to incorporate this kit with a role of one of the team in each group.

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Where does this lesson fit in with your curriculum (if the lesson is not a fit for the class you teach, how could the lesson be modified so that it is applicable to your curriculum)?

This does not have a tight fit curriculum this year, but next year I am teaching a STEM Course full time and it will then! I think I could use it as a way to teach data set interpretation.
Which part or parts of the lesson would your students need extra support in order to successful?
When I had a student volunteer run through this they picked it up quickly with little explanation needed. My volunteers are very excited about using these tools and each one I have let experiment so far has wanted to continue using the kit.

If you were to teach this lesson to your class, describe your role during the class. What does a successful teacher actively do during this lesson?

I would be responsible for facilitating and questioning as students work through the challenge. Again, I have been using student volunteers to test these lessons, since I want to incorporate them into my STEM course next year.

If you were to teach this lesson to your class, describe your student’s role during the class. What does “student success” look like?

Student success is engaged students directing themselves and learning from exploration. I also think students wanting to take the experiment a step further or try something else is a sign of success skills. They all have wanted to do more each time.

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Where does this lesson fit in with your curriculum (if the lesson is not a fit for the class you teach, how could the lesson be modified so that it is applicable to your curriculum)?
Our Patterns of Earth and Space unit is definitely a heavy hitter in the curriculum, but they weren’t as interested in this particular assignment. I think it was a bit more difficult for them to grasp because they didn’t collect the data themselves. (But that is real world Science!) I love that all data in Because Learning is authentic! That’s important for buy-in from kids (even though they were a little disconnected from this one)! They need to know that we consider them real scientists, doing REAL Science, with real scientific tools/data. So I loved this assignment!
Which part or parts of the lesson would your students need extra support in order to be successful?
We did like relating this information to the Super Blood Wolf Moon (although we didn’t collect our own data… that would have been a good idea!) It was good that they collected the data for the sunscreen lessons because the data meant more to them because they understood the collection process.
If you were to teach this lesson to your class, describe your role during the class. What does a successful teacher actively do during this lesson?
I want to “sell” it a little more. I think I want to create a problem based learning experience that convinced them that digging into the data is SUPER FUN (I don’t need a gimmick, but they seemed to!) I may even consider a lock-box/Break-out type assignment!
If you were to teach this lesson to your class, describe your student’s role during the class. What does “student success” look like?
My students will need me a bit more on this one, but I know they are going to love manipulating the data in the site to create graphs to match their needs. Successful students will be able to distinguish the timing of totality and understand anomalies (like when people walk in front of the sensor).

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I agree. This lesson is more teacher-dependent, but I think if given a problem to use the data, they may be more willing and able to read the graphs and input with greater ease. :slight_smile: One can hope… :wink:

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This one was a bit more tricky and took time playing with the graphs etc. but we figured it out and that is part of the learning process :slight_smile:
In my opinion this would definately be a lesson that a teacher would need to understand or at least take time messing around a bit on CODAP then let the students become familiar with CODAP first. Then I think all the data analysis would be way more fun. Otherwise it was pretty fun to look at the data. We were able to be right on the line of totality along with just a handful of others on a small lake and it was awesome!! So to revisit a year and a half later was really fun for all of us.

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I loved the resources for this lesson. I was not aware of the CODAP website. I am always looking for sites to share with my teachers and this is a definite “share”!

Where does this lesson fit in with your curriculum (if the lesson is not a fit for the class you teach, how could the lesson be modified so that it is applicable to your curriculum)? This lesson would fit in with science curriculum. I do not teach science but could see introducing this / co-teaching with a science teacher.

Which part or parts of the lesson would your students need extra support in order to be successful?
I think I would need to spend some time with my co-teacher to create scaffolding strategies for students. The activity is very involved and students may not be used to that level of interaction. I believe this would be a great way to begin to involve students in deeper thinking activities.

If you were to teach this lesson to your class, describe your role during the class. What does a successful teacher actively do during this lesson? The prep work leading up to the lesson would be crucial. During class time I would expect students to be actively involved in the learning process, although I would be available to help facilitate through rough spots.

If you were to teach this lesson to your class, describe your student’s role during the class. What does “student success” look like? Students would be actively involved with the lesson and with each other. I would encourage them to look to each other for answers and problem-solving strategies.

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We had teacher training during the 2017 eclipse (students were not yet on campus), but our superintendent bought us each a pair of the glasses and we all went out to observe. The crescent- shaped shadows were quite interesting!
I like this activity and using the two different websites. I think it is good for students to learn to use different resources together instead of one and done. I had some difficulty with the CODAP website when I use Microsoft Zoom. I want to try it again in the fall, when all the computers are setup so that I can see if it plays nicely with ZoomText.
High school students could talk about proof of orbiting objects in the solar system and the interpretation of data.
We would watch the videos together and then students would work in pairs to do the activity. I think students would be able to be pretty independent if ZoomText works with the CODAP website. Otherwise, I would do whole group at the smartboard.
Students would be able to navigate to the websites, upload the data to CODAP, and answer the questions on the worksheet.

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I really like the CODAP website as well and it was a new discovery! Thank you Because Learning! I find that my students do a great job of explaining information at just the right level for one another. It is a really great classroom strategy.