Researching and Reporting Human's Impact on Earth

by Kathryn Robles

Overall Rationale:

The overall process of this project includes:

1. Allow students to pick a human impact issue that is interesting to them

2. Research and their topic using proper techniques on OneNote (a digital notebook)

3. Share what they have learned with their peers in a concise commentary

4. Learn about infographics and create one on Canva

5. Share their Human Impact issue in the form of an infographic to an audience

First, this project requires students to review concepts in media literacy that they should be using in school and in their every day lives. The teacher is able to reinforce analyzing sources of information and other important ideas in media literacy. In addition to this, a skill that is important throughout school and life is the ability to synthesizing large amounts of information in a way that is understandable to an audience of peers, or another intentionally defined group of people.

This project requires students to do all of this with the help of a digital notebook. Digital notebooks are a great tool to use because they can be collaborative, and they are instantly saved to a cloud. Misplacing a OneNote notebook or leaving it at home is not a concern. When students are required to use a digital notebook to collect information and reflect on what they have learned, they are getting prepared for a future world that includes technology in every facet of their lives. Digital notebooks are something that can be used in many areas of education and for many purposes and they can also go beyond the classroom walls.

The second lesson requires students to study and create an infographic on Canva. Humans are visual learners and infographics tap into that. People who engage with data through pictures have a better understanding of what they are reading and are more likely to remember what they have learned. It is important to take the time to learn about infographics first. Understanding what makes them good (and why they are good) not only helps with the creation of an infographic but, can help to make students into future world citizens who look more critically at infographics that they see on social media or in the news. In addition to this, too many times teachers make the mistake of having students “create a PowerPoint” or “write a paper” and they do not tap into students’ more creative skills.

Finally, using programs like OneNote and Canva help students to become more familiar with digital applications outside of browsers and word processors. Anytime you have students engage with a new type of technology, you are teaching them to engage with a new skill. Learning new skills have many advantages, like increasing growth, promoting adaptability, and keeping the brain fresh and creative.

Lesson #1 - Becoming an Expert

1. A Brief Description of the Case

The purpose of this lesson is to give students a chance to focus on choosing a topic that interests them, finding reputable sources, taking/summarizing notes, and sharing information they have collected with other students in the class. This lesson will be done in groups of four. The group should be people that the students are comfortable with working with, like lab groups.

2. The Technology and Resources Involved

The students will be using Microsoft OneNote on their district issued iPads. This works best with styluses, but they are not absolutely necessary. They will be given resources for how to take notes and how to use Microsoft OneNote. These are linked in the sections below.

3. Prior Skills, Knowledge, and Pedagogy Required of Teachers

First and foremost, the teachers have to have a good understanding of media literacy and how to help students to find reliable resources. From there teachers should be ready to show students how to take and summarize notes. Finally, teachers should be able to run OneNote and understand how to use the class notebook features.

4. Prior Skills and Knowledge Required of Students

5. What are students asked to do Exactly?

Throughout the course of learning about Organic Chemistry students are exposed to a variety of topics including plastics, pollution, crude oil refining and uses, and other environmental predicaments. This will set the stage for this lesson.

The students will create a OneNote notebook (or section if the class is already using OneNote) to research a human impact topic. They will complete the following steps:

1. Choose a topic that they have interest in and would like to research
   (They will be narrowing down that topic and even possibly shifting it towards something else.)

2. Review how to distinguish reliable sources and learn a useful notetaking technique for research

3. Take notes on the topic in their OneNote notebook

4. Report their findings to their lab group, question each other, and take more notes.

6. What are the procedures of the project?

Day 1:

The teacher will introduce the students to the class OneNote notebook. (If the class is already using OneNote, the teacher will simply introduce the lesson.) The teacher should make a new collaborative page for the project, a collaborative folder for each group to work within, and finally post the resources for this lesson in the class content area. As an introduction, students will be shown this video:

Students will be given a short list of ideas and about 20 minutes look online and to talk to their group members about what they would like to do their research on. Each person in the group should choose a different topic with as little overlap as possible. While this is happening, the teacher should be walking around ready to help students to choose broad topics as the students will most likely narrow down their topic as they start to research. The idea list includes:

• Plastics (recycling, pollution, etc.)

• Fossil Fuels (climate change, environmental disasters like oil spills, pollution, etc.)

• Human impacts of Chemicals we use (in shampoo, soaps, cosmetics, air conditioning, and other organic pollutants like PFas)

• Ways humans have affected the environment with our growing population (ex: deforestation)

By the end of the first half of class the students should have added their research project idea to the collaborative space so that everyone in the class can see what other students are working on. The idea would be to have as much variety as possible.

For the second half of the hour the teacher will remind the students about how to find credible sources (Smart Student, 2021) and show them how to take notes.

Here’s an example of how I used OneNote and the functionalities of colors and highlighting to start to summarize and organize big ideas I found in my notes:

Day 2:

Students will be given the entire day to quietly work on research within their OneNote notebook. They will most likely be using their stylus, but they may type up their notes if they are more comfortable with that. They should make sure they fill in the second column of the topic table located in the class collaboration section. Homework may be likely after this day, and it would be okay to take a couple days before “Day 3” of the lesson.

Day 3:

Students will get into their groups and verbally report to their group members about what they learned during their research. They should stick to the big ideas they identified and anywhere that they can see potential for follow up. Each student will get five minutes to talk. A timer should be set, and the group should spend the full five minutes on each group member. If they find themselves with extra time, group members should take time to ask questions about what they are still curious about, students should be encouraged to take notes about this. After each student has a chance to talk to their group, the students should fill out the final column of the topic table in the class collaboration section. At the end of the hour all students in the class will fill in a reflection page in their OneNote about what they learned about from their group members and what they would like to research in the future.

Example of what the sections should look like in each student’s OneNote notebook:

Example Prompts in Student Notebooks:

7. What are the advantages of the project?

This project has so many different parts to it that will benefit student learning. First, the students are exposed to doing online research and finding reputable sources. This is an invaluable lesson in media literacy that they can take with them for the rest of their lives. Secondly, the students are becoming familiar with a specific type of note taking method that they will be able to use during the rest of high school, college, and beyond. Another thing is that that they are learning is how to synthesize information into a five-minute speech to their peers. In this lesson the students are supposed to do their speeches in person, but they could just as easily be done on FlipGrid or another video discussion tool.

This project is also relevant and interesting to the students. They are able to choose their own topic and run with it. Humankind’s impact on the Earth is an important topic for students to take with them when they leave the class.

8. What are the disadvantages of the project?

A disadvantage to the project would be that styluses are necessary for the students to have the full experience with the note taking. In order to organize the notes on OneNote the way that the method teaches, the students should first handwrite the notes and then find patterns. Another disadvantage of the project would be that it can be time consuming and there is a lot of material to cover in this class.

9. What types of instructional strategies are included?

Students will need to learn how to work OneNote, so the teacher will need to demonstrate that for the class. Teachers should focus on media literacy throughout the time that the students are researching. The students will be collecting data, researching, collaborating, and synthesizing information.

10. What are the possibilities that innovation can be transferred to other teachers, subject content, and different school settings?

This is something that can be used in just about any subject area at almost any level. There is always a need for research in class and skills like fact checking sources can be used in many subject areas. For example, in Spanish a teacher could require students to research different cultural norms. Researching with a digital notebook, like OneDrive, could be used all the way to the first grade if teachers scaffolded the content correctly. In fact, the more research that students do, the better that they will become at finding reliable sources and synthesizing information.

11. Sources

Ferguson, L. (2021, May 28). Using digital notebooks to showcase student learning. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/digital-science-notebooks-showcase-student-learning

Fulton, L., & Paek, S. (2017). Learning to use digital science notebooks: A teacher’s perceptions and classroom use. Scientific Educator, 26(1), 11–20. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1272516.pdf

Science Portfolios. (n.d.). NSTA. Retrieved October 2, 2022, from https://www.nsta.org/science-teacher/science-teacher-mayjune-2021/science-portfolios

Sinai, K. (2021, May 25). How I Use Digital Science Notebooks to Maximize Student Learning. Science by Sinai. Retrieved October 2, 2022, from https://sciencebysinai.com/how-i-use-digital-science-notebooks/

Willoughby, C. (2019, July 22). Recording Science in the Digital Era: From Paper to Electronic Notebooks and Other Digital Tools (1st ed.). Royal Society of Chemistry.

Lesson #2 - Making an Infographic

1. A Brief Description of the Lesson

Students will first take a look at and understand infographics. Then they will be creating their own infographic that shows a topic related to human’s impact on the environment. The students will be using the information they collected in lesson one.

2. The Technology and Resources Involved

The students will be working on the district issued iPads to access the website or app, Canva. Right now, Microsoft districts have a pro license for Canva for all teachers and students.

3. Prior Skills, Knowledge, and Pedagogy Required of Teachers

Teachers should be familiar with infographics. It is not enough to have just seen them before, there is a lot to take in when you look at an infographic. This TedTalk scratches the surface with how visualizing data can be so powerful. The following websites are a good start for teachers who are curious about using infographics in the classroom:

Infographics in the Classroom from The California Academy of Sciences

Using Infographics for Teaching and Learning from The College of DuPage

Infographics from Kathy Schrock’s Guide to Everything

4. Prior Skills and Knowledge, and Required of Students

The students will need to have good research techniques and be able to synthesize data that they find. (This will be accomplished in Lesson 1). In addition to this, students will need to be familiar with Canva. They can be sent to tutorials ahead of time. Finally, students will need to have a good amount of math skills to be able to put together data that is meaningful to their audience.

5. What are students asked to Do Exactly?

The students will be introduced infographics and they will have time to analyze infographics and share what they have learned.

Then they will create their own infographic based on the topic they researched in the previous lesson. The steps are as follows:

1. Define Topic

2. Define an Audience

3. Research

4. Create infographic on Canva

5. Share Infographic

Here is the assignment that the students will be given to guide them throughout the process:

6. What are the procedures of the project?

Introducing Infographics:

Students will be introduced to what an infographic is by looking at examples that they may see around them. From there they will each hit the internet to find infographics about a topic that interested them. They should be encouraged to look outside of science, for example they may type into Google “baseball statistics infographic.” The students will then work in their lab groups to look at the four examples of infographics and decide of which one is “best.” They will then report to the class. Below is a slideshow that lays out these steps for the students:

Collecting Data:

The first thing the students will need to do is to define their audience. They will have options for where their infographics will end up, it is just important that they think about how to best reach the population they are trying to inform. The majority of their topic has already been researched in the first lesson, but now it will be time for the students to look for data that can be represented visually. They will take time to look for data and facts that will be appropriate for their audience.

Creating the Infographic and Posting it to the Public:

The students will use what they have learned about infographics to create an infographic on Canva. They should start by watching this video:

They will need time in class to practice using Canva as it is fairly user-friendly but can be tricky if they are using it for the first time. After they are finished making their infographic, they will share the infographic with the class and get it out to the audience they had previously defined.

7. What are the advantages of the project?

The advantage of this lesson is that it will help students to think critically about the data that they collected in lesson one and organize their thoughts into messages that are easy for an intended audience understand. Using Canva does not require the artistic skill that was once needed to create scientific charts on paper. Students who engage with data through pictures have a better understanding of what they are reading about and are more likely to remember what they have learned. Humans are visual learners and infographics tap into this.

8. What are the disadvantages of the project?

One disadvantage is that some students struggle to interpret data that is in the form of pictures and charts. Teachers need to make sure that students' graph interpretation skills are up to par before they expect them to understand and create an infographic. Another disadvantage is that creating anything like this during class time can be time consuming and if it is sent home for homework every student may not have the same access to the internet which can make it difficult to run Canva.

9. What types of instructional strategies are included?

Students are learning how to read and interpret data, create art, make graphs, and use an app, Canva, that they would not have otherwise had the chance to use. Teachers are offering good examples of work and scaffolding how to create an infographic step by step.

10. What are the possibilities that innovation can be transferred to other teachers, subject content, and different school settings?

This is something that can be used in just about any subject area at almost any level. There is always a need for students needing to be able to synthesize information and present it to an audience. For example, in English a teacher could require students to create an infographic about different types of books or on a specific author. In Social Studies students could create timelines that have pictures that described what happened during that time. Infographics can be used all the way from the first grade if teachers scaffolded the content correctly. In fact, the more infographics that students create and look at, the better that they will become at putting together information and showing what they have learned from classes.

11. Sources

California Academy of Sciences. (n.d.). Infographics in the Classroom Teacher Toolkit. Retrieved October 2, 2022, from https://www.calacademy.org/educators/infographics-in-the-classroom-teacher-toolkit

Davidson, R. (2014, March). Using infographics in the science classroom. Science Teacher, 81(3), 34–39. https://s3.amazonaws.com/nstacontent/tst1403_34.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAIMRSQAV7P6X4QIKQ&Expires=1664800071&Signature=7c%2bGvNcs46UK%2bsQb%2f83vGRMjRYs%3d

Saad, A., & Naparin, H. (2017, December). Infographics in education: A review on infographic design. The International Journal of Multimedia and Its Applications, 9(4/5/6), 15–24. https://doi.org/10.5121/ijma.2017.9602

STEM Literacy through Infographics. (n.d.). SLI. Retrieved October 2, 2022, from http://science-infographics.org