The Curious Researcher

Students will use designated days to explore a phenomenon of their choice where they can use their curiosity to find answers. Students will create their own questions and conduct a research. Students will then present their research through a Hyperdocs.

About Me

Name: Jessica Garcia

Grade: 7th/8th Grade Science

Site: Rio Tierra Junior High School

Tech Required

Chromebooks

Googledocs

Google Classroom

TRUSD SCOPE AND SEQUENCE

    • Digital Citizenship - Students manage their online identity and reputation, model ethical behavior, & respect intellectual property and personal data within school policy while understanding how digital actions are never erasable. ISTE 2.1
    • Knowledge Constructor - Students demonstrate and practice the ability to effectively utilize research strategies to locate appropriate digital resources in support of their learning. ISTE 3.a
    • Empowered Learner -Students are able to navigate a variety of technologies and transfer their knowledge and skills to learn how to use new technologies. ISTE 1.d
    • Creative Communicator - Students select appropriate platforms and tools to create original works or responsibly repurpose other digital resources into new creative work. ISTE 6.b


Learning Outcomes

Replace with bullets of CCSS and other learning outcomes

Students will be able to:

  • NGSS: Plan and conduct investigations and construct explanations.
  • ELA: Conduct short research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question), drawing on several sources and generating additional related, focused questions that allow for multiple avenues of exploration. (WHST.6-8.7)
  • ELA: Writing literary and informational texts to present, describe, and explain ideas and information, using appropriate technology (W.7.1–10; WHST.7.1–2,4–10; L.7.1–6 )
  • ELA: Integrate multimedia and visual displays into presentations to clarify information, strengthen claims and evidence, and add interest. (SL.8.5 )

Student Tech Skills

Students will be able to:

  • Use Google Classroom
  • Create and organize a presentation to convey a research (W6)
  • Use age appropriate technologies to locate, collect, organize content from media collection for specific purposes, citing sources (RI 5, RI 7)
  • Insert, resize, highlight, format, copy and paste images and text (W5, W6, W10)

Student Work

(click on each to view in full)

Plan designated days that will allow students to focus only on their phenomenon research. (We worked on this about 1-2 times a week for about 2 months. Students do not necessarily need to choose a phenomenon from the provided websites, it can be something they have seen before or wondered about.

  1. Introduce to students what a phenomenon is. (Definition and Examples)
  2. Have the students explore different phenomena. (More Examples)
    1. These weblinks are shared on Google Classroom with the class.
  3. Give students the opportunity to choose 2-4 phenomena that spark their interest and have them write 3 questions they have about each phenomenon. (Research Guide)
    1. Students use Costa's Level of Thinking to create their questions which is also shared on Google Classroom. (Costa's Level of Thinking)
    2. Allowing them to choose multiple phenomenon can help narrow their choice based on information that can be found.
    3. Each student in each classroom chooses one phenomenon that has not been chosen by another classmate and has been approved by the teacher.
  4. Using the research guide, have students conduct research on their own questions created.
    1. Students will create a title, catch phrase, the reason why the phenomenon was chosen, and where to find the phenomenon they are researching.
    2. Have students provide as much information as possible in response to their questions and have them provide the website where the information was found.
    3. Students write an interesting fact and create a short summary.
  5. Create a Hyperdocs Template and create a copy for each student on Google Classroom. (How to Create a Hyperdocs) (Phenomenon Template)
  6. Students have already collected their information for the phenomenon, now they organize it into the Hyperdocs.
    1. Students add links under the appropriate category indicating where more information can be found. (video, answers to questions, interesting facts, locations)
    2. Students can add images, edit font, color, border on their Hyperdocs.

7. Have each student turn it in and add a link as a comment under the same assignment to share with their classmates. (How to share )