California Water Communities

Introduction

Before you start this whole thing, build the biome with your class BEFORE you start this project!  It's the mini-project in week four.  If you start now, then in four weeks, you will hit the ground running!  (All biome stuff is written in red so you can skip to where it is and see what's coming.)  If you want to add caterpillars to the biome, click here to order them now.  When the caterpillars arrive, you can put them in the biomes, and be ready!  I am telling you, hit the ground running!

BIOME PROJECT 

More biome Resources

Week One: Science: How did changes to California's water change California?

Day One: Maps

I let kids just Google Earth the locations in order to complete the map.  I print the map hard copy and the kids mark it up.  This takes about twenty-minutes to look up California Counties, fresh water ways, populated areas

We share out what we noticed.  In a few days, when the writing is done, we will start to make a relief map of California out of salt dough and paint.  This is the first step in that.

Also, I like to use this interactive map to show students how the natural cycles in California change over time, and effect the water supplies in the state.   The website have tons of interactive maps to notice: Like worldwide rainfall, worldwide vegetation, snowfall... it's a great resource!

Week Two: History: How did the discovery of gold in 1848 change California?  In other words, how did California change from 1840 to 1890?

Day One: Graphing

First and foremost, we need to talk how the population itself changed.  I have kids graph California population on Google Sheets, using this guide.   Once they are done graphing, we can all take a look at the data, and have a discussion tomorrow.

Day Two: Class Discussion, Generate Questions

Today, we look at the graphs we created and discuss what we notice.  Like.....Who are these people? Are they from the East Coast?  Are they from Asian?  It was a worldwide Gold Rush... So then we ask,  What counties are these people living in?  Why would they choose those counties?  What did they do when they didn't find gold?  (The main thing that we need students to notice is that California literally does not have enough freshwater to support all these people coming in.  Therefore, people needed to live near freshwater sources.)  It is probably best to chart these list of questions.  I like to use a T-chart, so later I can assign the question to individual students are partners.  This will lead to the writing assignment on Day Five. 

After a hearty discussion, you can turn the kids loose on some non-fiction books.  I like to pre-order books on this topic from our local library, and then have about 30-70 books sitting in class.  These are all nonfiction books, because I want to teach students how to navigate nonfiction books.  (1) First, students are given about five minutes to find a book they want to read. It's best that they have the books in tubs, and one tub per team.  (2) Second, students sit down with the chosen book and a post-it note.  On the post-it note, students can either answer one of the questions from the chart, or think of another question not yet on the chart.  Either way, it should be silent for about ten minutes, with each kid having one or two post-it notes.  (3) Now, students have the option of choosing a different book. The rule is that their post-it note must stick out of the book, like a bookmark so it can be easily found.  (4) Students read for an additional 10 minutes.  (5) At the end, more questions can be added to the chart, or answers can be added to the chart.  (During Independent reading time at a different part of the day, students can again choose books from these bins.  I leave the bins in my room for about a week, and keep kids reading from these bins during those independent reading sessions.) 

To conclude the lesson, have a look at the chart and tell students that tomorrow, they will have to make a commitment to the one question they want to answer about how California changed in the 50 years since gold was discovered.

Day Three: Maps and Primary Sources

I use Water Use in the United States to get some basic information about California.  This website is a plethora of information, with a whole lot of graphs for them to interpret. It's a good idea to let the students just observe the website for about 10 minutes, with a simple objective such as, "tell me something you've noticed" or "What questions do you have about this data?"  After students have explored a little bit, we can have them get their questions from yesterday to see if this website answers them. Having a chart paper for all the students to share out on works well.

Day Four: Start Writing Assignment:

First, I like to tell students what to write, sentence by sentence, according to this outline.  I call this the first draft.  Of course, it will be horrible.  It's a first draft!   It usually takes is about 30-45 minutes.  I tell the first sentence, give students about two minutes to write it, give the second sentence, two minutes, you get the idea.  I usually have to do this to remind students to "Stop here, start on a  new line and indent.  Here comes the next paragraph."  Most kids still need help setting up paragraphs.  At the end of this day, I just give about five minutes to re-read their work and remind them we will work on it more tomorrow.

Day Five: Work on Writing Assignment:

Today, we look at my modeled writing and this rubric.  Now, as note, I missed a few things in my modeled writing.  (Most obviously, (1) I only quoted someone one time, not two.  (2) I didn't use a graphic.)  In this way, you can have kids grade it together to show them how to use the rubric.  I like to put a checkmark next to the thing the student did, and an X next to the thing not done.  I count up the checkmarks and that's the grade!  I usually change the rubric as the class needs, maybe changing it to 150 words or 500; maybe adding an extra paragraph, maybe requiring them to make a graph about a change.  For this grade level, I have found these checklists rubrics quite helpful.  

Once we look at my modeled writing, I give students a copy of the rubric and ask them to grade themselves silently.  They can add a part they missed, edit to add an image, whatever they missed.  

Day Six: Finalizing the Draft

Now, we can finalize our drafts.  If students wrote it by hand, I made them re-copy it neatly.  Or, turn a hand-written copy into a typed copy.  If it was on the computer the whole time, I make them re-read it again, check the rubric again before clicking "Turn in."  Then, I print and grade.

Day Seven: 

For those who have an acceptable grade on the writing, they are allowed to start their relief maps of California.  Whatever an acceptable grade means to you: 300 words, and B+ or higher, 75% of rubric... whatever.  It is a really great motivator for that hands-on learning.

As a reminder, before you offically start Week Four, revisit that biome.  The ones the students built should be showing some growth.  If you did the roly-poly habitat, now is the time to combine those roly-polies with the biome.  Maybe even add a new "community member," such a snail with the roly-polies or a new plant or a worm.  This week we are going to be learning about water so adding too much water can help kids understand flooding, or not watering can teach kids about drought.  You get the idea.  Okay, revisit that biome and start with California water rights.  By the time this week is over, you are going to jump back into the biomes and do some real science observations with them.  This is also a good time to order some LIVE butterflies from amazon or a pet supply store.