ND Curriculum Initiative

Subject & Standards

Needs Assessment/Rational

The West Fargo School District has five themes required in first grade science. The third theme is Earth Science and the topic is “weather and the four seasons.” The North Dakota Science Content Standards and the National Science Standards have these categories that link with the weather unit: 1. science as inquiry. 2. unifying concepts. 3. observing the world around us. The standards also state that exploring questions is central to science learning. The students should be asking questions, describing events, constructing explanations, communicating ideas to others, and using logical thinking. Brief Summary of Unit: In this introductory unit to weather, the students will learn about the four seasons and the weather patterns associated with each season. The students will learn the ways to find out daily weather forecasts. They will assume the role of a pen pal and create a book illustrating what the four seasons look like from their bedroom window. In the other performance task, the students will assume the role of a parent and pick out their child’s clothes for one week according to the predicted forecast. The unit will be evaluated using checklists and self-assessment.

Understandings & Goals

Enduring Understanding: 1. There are general weather patterns associated with each of the four seasons. 2. There are many ways to receive daily weather forecasts. 3. Weather conditions change with the seasons and people adjust their activities and clothing to meet the changes.
Goal(s): 1. Students will improve their ability to observe, record, and communicate weather conditions. 2. Students will increase their knowledge of weather conditions in other areas of the country.

Questions Answered

Essential questions: 1. How does weather change? 2. Why is it important to be able to find out the weather forecast? 3. How does the weather affect our daily choices?
Objectives: 1. Read and Interpret the weather forecast from the weather channel.com, newspaper, news, thermometer, and through observation.  2. Plan how to dress; according to the weather forecast.  3. Identify characteristics of various weather elements.  4. Recognize that weather changes daily.  5. Take a pretest and posttest assessment quiz on weather after navigating the site as a class.  6. Look at website, learn about clouds, observe clouds, and write a poem about clouds using new vocabulary.

Assessment

What quiz and test items (e.g. simple content-focused questions that require a single, best answer) will provide evidence of understanding? Quiz 1: Identification of seasons Quiz 2: Identify weather elements.  What academic prompts (e.g. open-ended questions or problems that require students to think critically and then to prepare a response / product / performance) will provide evidence of understanding? 1. The students will describe and tell about their favorite season in detail.  2. They must identify their favorite season and then form small groups with other students that also like that season.  3. The small groups will then brainstorm words that describe their favorite season and activities that can be done in that season.  4. The groups will make a presentation to the class.  5. The students may also use chart paper and make illustrations to go along with the presentation.
What performance tasks and projects (e.g. complex challenges that are authentic, mirror the real world and require a performance or product) will you include that will provide evidence of student understanding?  1. The class will develop and email a pal from another location in the country.  2. They will email their weather reports, including photographs documenting current weather conditions for one week.  3. The class will recieve weather reports from their email pal.  4. The class will print the pictures recieved and display them in the classroom. 5. Comparisons can be made between the two cities.
What other evidence (e.g. observations, work samples, dialogues, student self-assessment) of understanding will you collect? 1.  Individual Student Book: “The Weather Outside My Window”. 2.  The assessment will be made during the students presentation on the overhead of their favorite page.

Instructional Strategies

Students will use inquiry-based and project-based strategies to answer the questions: How does weather change? Why is it important to be able to find out the weather forecast? How does the weather affect our daily choices? Through inquiry-based learning, the students will research how the weather changes on a daily basis. Students will use our classroom computer to find the current weather conditions in our area and record the findings on a classroom graph. We will use this graph to bridge into our project-based strategy. This will promote higher order thinking by encouraging the use of our classroom computer and the comparison of our daily weather forecast. Through project-based learning students will email a web pal reporting our current weather conditions along with outdoor photographs to show our weather conditions. The photographs will be the view outside our window. The class will create a comparison graph, comparing the weather for their city and the city of their web pal. The graph will cover one week’s time. This project-based strategy is promoting higher-order thinking in the students as they compare weather conditions and how life styles are affected by our weather conditions in comparison to another area of our country.