2. What do we want to learn?
What are the key concepts (form, function, causation, change, connection, perspective, responsibility, reflection) to be emphasized within this inquiry?
Form, function, connection, responsibility
What lines of inquiry will define the scope of the inquiry into the central idea?
  • systems of the human body
  • how the systems work
  • choices that impact on these systems
What teacher questions/provocations will drive these inquiries?
  1. What are the systems of the human body?
  2. How do the systems work?
  3. What would affect these systems?

Class/grade: 4EAge group: 9-10 years old
School: German European School, SingaporeSchool code: 650249
Title: Living Healthy
Teacher(s): Mallika Kripalani
Date: 21st February – 23rd March 2007
Proposed duration: number of hours 19over number of weeks 4.5 weeks
1. What is our purpose?
To inquire into the following:
Who we are
An exploration into the nature of the self; of our beliefs and values; of personal health: physical, mental, social and spiritual; of our families, friends, communities, and cultures; Of our rights and responsibilities of what it means to be human
•Central Idea
Peoples choices influence their body systems
Summative assessment task(s):
What are the possible ways of assessing students’ understanding of the central idea? What evidence, including student-initiated actions, will we look for?
Models of the human body systems
Explanation of the impact of choices on the system that the students had been studying.
Reflection: Have you made any changes to your lifestyle? If yes, what are they? If not, why not? (did not get to this)

4. . How best might we learn?

What are the learning experiences suggested by the teacher and/or students to encourage the students to engage with the inquiries and address the driving questions?

  1. Blooms Taxonomy to assess prior knowledge
  2. Visit to Science Centre
  3. Students to decide how best to learn about the body and they systems. Each group decides which system to study.
  4. Students to plan how they are going to find the information and then present the information. They assign roles to each member of the group. To include a bibliography.
  5. Students build a model of the system they are studying.
  6. Healthy and Unhealthy food charts
  7. Healthy/Unhealthy lifestyle practices.
  8. Plan a menu for a healthy week of food/lifestyle choices (homework).
  9. Answer the question: What are our personal responsibilities for maintaining a healthy lifestyle?
  10. Understanding of food/lifestyle choices on the system being studied. Research project.

What opportunities will occur for transdisciplinary skills development and for the development of the attributes of the learner profile?

Portfolio activities link the Transdisciplinary skills – Self Management Skills

- Healthy Lifestyle / Informed Choices

Learner profile: Balanced

Attitudes: Cooperation and Appreciation

3. How might we know what we have learned?
This column should be used in conjunction with “How best might we learn?”
What are the possible ways of assessing students’ prior knowledge and skills? What evidence will we look for?
Using the taxonomy, students will have to pick 2 items from every category to do. Will assess their prior knowledge through the written work produced in their UOI books.
KWL chart about what they know about each system of the human body. Small group work – draw a body of a person. Fill in the body with information about what they know about the systems of the body.
What are the possible ways of assessing student learning in the context of the lines of inquiry? What evidence will we look for?
Systems of the human body
  • Research projects in small groups – using Internet skills and books
  • Model of human body systems (5)
How do the systems work?
  • How do they work? Explanation
  • What impact do the choices have on the different systems? Report
  • Student designed rubric – to assess the impact on different systems
What would affect these systems?
  • Healthy and Unhealthy food charts
  • Healthy/Unhealthy lifestyle practices
  • Answer the question: What are our personal responsibilities for maintaining a healthy lifestyle?
  • Understanding of food/lifestyle choices on the system being studied. Research project.

5. What resources need to be gathered?
What people, places, audio-visual materials, related literature, music, art, computer software, etc, will be available?
Skeleton from high school; anatomy model. Lots of books – list attached
How will the classroom environment, local environment, and/or the community be used to facilitate the inquiry?
Skeleton from science lab, internal organs model from library, Large body outlines from the students, wall charts about parts of the body. Books about the human body, Visit to Science Centre
6. To what extent did we achieve our purpose?
Assess the outcome of the inquiry by providing evidence of students’ understanding of the central idea. The reflections of all teachers involved in the planning and teaching of the inquiry should be included.
I really felt that the students understood the central idea as they had to plan their own inquiry – this was great. What worked well was the combination of doing some Language Arts activities that went through each system of the body and some inquiry into those. We also had to scaffold an initial explanation so that they knew what they had to do when it came to writing their own.
How you could improve on the assessment task(s) so that you would have a more accurate picture of each student’s understanding of the central idea.
I liked the assessment tasks as both the presentations and the explanations gave me a good understanding of each child’s knowledge. Further the observations taken at the student led conferences showed whether the students understood and were able to convey the concepts without group members around to help.
What was the evidence that connections were made between the central idea and the transdisciplinary theme?
This one was an obvious link to physical, mental and social health.

7. To what extent did we include the elements of the PYP?
What were the learning experiences that enabled students to:
•develop an understanding of the concepts identified in “What do we want to learn?”
•demonstrate the learning and application of particular transdisciplinary skills?
•develop particular attributes of the learner profile and/or attitudes?
In each case, explain your selection.
  • Trip to Science Centre and Robotics lab was a good front loading activity
  • The Living Healthy blooms grid was good too – got them thinking about healthy foods and habits early on. This helped later with their explanations.
  • Students had to plan their own inquiry for this unit. They were given the central idea and the inquiry points. They had to come up with a research plan which included the following:
1)Writing their own questions
2)Deciding who was going to find out the answers to which question
3)Draw a diagram of the system
4)Make a model of the system
5)Choose a method of presentation
  • For the Transdisciplinary skills, each student had to write an explanation of how different choices impact on the particular system that they were studying.
  • The Learner profile we were focussing on for this unit was Balanced. In their explanations, I could see that they understood that some choices were good and some were bad. For the attitudes, the group work highlighted whether they were able to work cooperatively or not.

9. Teacher notes
Resources:
  1. The Human Machine: The Outer Shell – Angliss, Sarah
  2. Eyewitness Visual Dictionaries: The Visual Dictionary of the Human body
  3. DK Eyewitness Guides : Human body – Parker, Steve
  4. Horus Editions: The Human Body – Crocker, Mark
  5. DK: What makes me? – Winston, Robert
  6. Your Body: Eating – Sandeman, Anna
  7. Kingfisher - Question Time: Human Body
  8. Everyday Science: About your body – Taylor, Barbara
  9. Kingfisher - Young Discoverers: Inside the body, Living Science and Experiments
  10. When it’s hard to eat – Condon, Judith
  11. How your body works: A trip around the body machine – Hindley, Judy
  12. The Human Machine: Power Pack – Angliss, Sarah
  13. The complete book of the brain: All about the body’s control centre – Frandon, John
  14. When it’s hard to breathe – Condon, Judith
  15. When it’s hard to see – Condon, Judith
  16. When it’s hard to Learn – Condon, Judith
  17. When it’s hard to move – Condon, Judith
  18. Your Body: Breathing – Sandeman, Anna
  19. Your Body: Senses – Sandeman, Anna
  20. DK Guide: Human Body – Walker, Richard
  21. The Mind and Body – Pick, Christopher
  22. The Human Body – A fascinating see-through view of how our bodies work

8. What student-initiated inquiries arose from the learning?
Record a range of student-initiated inquiries and student questions and highlight any that were incorporated into the teaching and learning.
All the student questions were incorporated into the inquiry. These were laminated and hung up in the room and completely led the inquiry.
At this point teachers should go back to box 2 “What do we want to learn?” and highlight the teacher questions/provocations that were most effective in driving the inquiries.
What student-initiated actions arose from the learning?
Record student-initiated actions taken by individuals or groups showing their ability to reflect, to choose and to act.
Students loved this unit. Some brought in human body books. Some had models that they brought in.
Niklas’ mum – Niklas keeps talking about the human body at home and how it works.
Sophie and Jovana’s mum – the girls explained to their parents at home about how the systems worked and what they needed to eat to help support the systems they were looking at.
Anno – brought in a model
Sonja – brought in a model with acupressure points and a booklet explaining them.