I'm designing a curriculum lesson for a high school Advanced Placement
Environmental Science Class. The lesson is on grass roots support that
leads to the passage of environmental laws. Students working in pairs
will research the historical context that has produced major
environmental legislation in the United States. In many cases it takes a
crises and public outrage to get congress to act. Each group will
investigate one law. Student groups will also investigate the key
provisions of the law and research the government agency charged with
upholding the law. There final task will be to research and share a case
study that demonstrates whether or not the law is functioning as
intended. The final product will be shared with the class in fish bowl
setting.
At this point I'm not sure which format will work best. The webquest
format may be a best fit
Thursday, July 5, 2007
EDUC632 Project Proposal
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3 comments:
The webquest format is beginning to show its age IMHO. While you can certainly do this in that format, surely there is more opportunity for student growth in a more spiral format. That is, you and the students set out some aims, then you come back together for discussion and setting new goals, over and over until the target is reached.
For me, the problem with webquests is that the end product too often is prescribed. And, the more prescription, the less opportunity for higher order thinking.
Do you model one of the acts for them on the protopage? Getting them to see if it's still functional today is a great real world task. How will this prepare your students for the AP exam? Is there a response section about the laws? How in depth into the politics (you mentioned the Endangered Species Act) should the students go, is that a focus for them? Are you the only grader or will they be grading each other/themselves? Maybe a summative project would be to have them contact their state senator/congressmen and have them support or oppose a new bill being debated and include their citations from this project to stregthen their arguement! Or maybe have the class create a "law" for the students at charter to vote on for the school. Watching them via computers rather than a class sounds good, have the groups grade say half the projects, via a sign up sheet and then you would grade them all and show the top 3.
You've been tagged. I did not think you would mind being a part of the 8 Random Facts meme.
Normally, I do not carry out these types of activities, but decided to participate in this one as a salute to the end of the summer.
Tony
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