21st Century Cohort
Lesson Plan Components
The best instructional designs are “backwards,” beginning with the end in mind and moving through three interrelated stages. As we design instruction, we must begin with desired results (Stage One) ; Then determine how to assess and evaluate student progress relative to those results (Stage Two) ; And only then design and implement instructional strategies to promote student achievement of desired results (Stage Three).
Desired results must clearly specify what students are expected to know (e.g., facts, concepts, generalizations, rules, principles, laws) ; Do (e.g., skills, procedures, processes) ; And understand (e.g., student behaviors reflecting the six facets of understanding) as a result of the teaching and learning process.
6 Facets of Understanding:
1. Explanation
2. Interpretation
3. Application
4. Perspective
5. Empathy
6. Self Knowledge
Stage One – Begin with Desired Results:
What do you want students to know, be able to do, and understand?
What are your learning targets?
Learning Target One – I am able to explain how organisms living in an ecosystem interact with each other in feeding relationships.
Learning Target Two: I can collect data, organize my data, and prepare to use it to explain relationships between organisms.
Learning Target Three – I can use Excel to create a graph of my data, interpret the data, and draw conclusions.
Stage Two – Assess and Evaluate Assessment Evidence:
How will you know they have accomplished the learning targets?
(Performance task / quizzes / observations / homework / journals / projects / writings / speeches / etc)
Which strategies will provide evidence of student learning?
Assessment Evidence One – Students will create a data table and collect data according directions given in the activity.
Assessment Evidence Two – Students will use the data to make graph using Excel, they will label dependent and independent variables, give the graph and title, and choose appropriate scale and increments.
Assessment Evidence Three – Students will answer questions about the graphs; interpret the relationships between population size, food supplies, and habitat availability.
Stage Three – Design and Implement Learning Plan:
What instructional strategies will you use to help students achieve the learning targets?
Which instructional strategies will help students acquire and integrate learning?
Which instructional strategies will help students practice, review and apply learning?
Which strategies help students practice and improve their 21st century skills?
Design and Implementation of Learning Plan:
1. Have students brainstorm about the meaning of Carrying Capacity.
(Acquire and integrate learning)
2. Watch a Brain Pop movie about population growth.
(Acquire and integrate learning)
3. Introduce the activity called: “The Story of the Hungry Owls”
4. Allow students to fly the owls and collect the data according to instructions. (Practice and apply learning)
5. Demonstrate the use of Excel to input data and create a chart to show changes in populations of mice and owls. (Practice and improve technology skills)
6. Lead a class discussion of results and questions that evaluate and interpret the data that was collected.
Use Bloom’s Taxonomy to develop higher level thinking questions.
( See attached document below.)
Name ______Period___
Carrying Capacity Lab:
The Story of the Hungry Owls
Trial 1: Toss 35 mice into an area taped off to be 1 meter square.
Toss two owls on to the mouse population.
Record the number of mice and owls on your table.
All mice touched by an owl are eaten so remove all of these mice. If an owl does not touch at least three (3) mice it dies, so remove the owl before the next trial. For every owl that ate at least 4-8 mice add another owl.
Trial 2: Count the remaining mice and for every pair of mice remaining add two mice to represent reproduction.
Toss the remaining owls out again. Repeat for at least 5 trials.
Record the number of owls and mice for each pass on the data table.
Repeat.
Trial / # of Owls / Mice / Mice Added or lost(+ or –) / Owls Added or lost (+ or -)
1 / 2 / 35
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Make a graph of the data using Microsoft Excel.
Open excel in all programs.
Label three columns: Trial, Owls, and Mice
Fill in the appropriate numbers in the columns.
Click and drag over the table you made.
Insert: Line graph.
Layout: Choose appropriate names for title, and x and y axis.
1. Predict what the next two trials on the graph would look like.
2. Mice eat green plants and grains, what would happen to the population of owls if there were no rain in the area for month.
3. What would happen to the mouse population if there were no rain?
4. What other conditions can you think of that would cause changes in the mouse population?
5. What conditions might people create that would affect the population of mice or owls?
6. What is the niche of the owl in the ecosystem?
7. What is the niche of the mouse in the ecosystem?
8. Name a possible producer in the ecosystem.
Compare and Contrast:
How is this activity like an ecosystem? / How is it not like an ecosystem?Teacher notes:
I took a clip art picture of an owl and attached them to 3x5 cards and laminated them for the owls in this activity. I used 1 inch square pieces of foam art material for the mice. You could use paper clips instead. I used masking tape to make a 1 meter square on the floor to represent the habitat of the mice.
I selected students to fly the mice and drop them from about 10 inches off the ground on to the mice.
Then they picked up the owl and the “dead mice” they had to calculate the number of remaining mice and double it to represent population growth. They determine how many owls survived and how many need to be added.
Then the first owls can pass the owls on to the next students for round 2. We only got through about 5 rounds per class, so my 4th period class started where 3rd period left off, they continued for the next five rounds and we shared the data with the other classes before we went to the computer lab to make the graphs.
Once the graphs were made I told those who finished early to explore Excel and try to change the background, or to stretch the graph out to change the shape of the curve. We discussed scale and increments, and how they can affect the interpretation of data.
Rather than having students print their graphs and wasting 100 pages I made small graphs of the data and had them staple it to their questions so they could refer to it for analysis.