Field Journal Rubric

The learning objectives are:

  • Students will experience the benefits and outcomes of field journaling first hand.
  • Students will use the field journals as an authentic assessment tool.

We will use the following rubric to evaluate your journal.

Checklist

1. Consistent: journal contains entries for each field session.

2. Neat: writing is legible

3. Clear: all diagrams or drawings are labeled and related to written entries.

4. Complete: each entry contains the following information.

a) Date

b) Time

c) Location (give geographic coordinates or landmarks)

d) Weather conditions (eg. temperature, wind direction and velocity, cloud cover [% and kind], approximate humidity)

e) Habitat(s)

f) Farming practices

5. Relevant: Descriptions address the questions or directions specified in materials distributed for each field session.

6. Careful: Descriptions reflect careful and/or patient observation.

Rubric for Journal

CRITERIA OF FEEDBACK / Beginning / Approaching / Meeting / Exceeding/Professional / Your score on 40
1.General Impression of presentation of journal / Didn’t try very hard and incomplete in giving an overall impression of our field experiences and the learning that happened. / Good try – beginning to document experiences, sketch but did not do this thoroughly. Needs work to make it inviting to read. / Great first attempt at nature journaling. Well organized documentation filled with lively and inviting sketches, reflections of experiences. / An accomplished beautiful, inviting, informative, well organized, rich in detail and synthesis, useful and a great documentation of field program.
2. Documentation of data/observation / Little evidence that the student has reflected on ideas that were presented. / Occasional reflections on the ideas that were presented during the field course. Very little if any connections were made. / Student has reflected often during field course on the ideas that were presented. Some connections were made with higher order thinking. / Student has reflected and expanded on most ideas that were presented during field work. Many connections are in evidence. Higher order thinking is in evidence throughout.
3. Further Questions / No tagging or curiosity shown for further research. / Rare evidence of curiosity for further research and questioning of topics covered. / Much evidence of curiosity for further investigation and research on topics. / Evidence of curiosity by tagging areas for further research and questioning are present throughout the journal.
4. Field Drawings and Notes / No field notes are in evidence. / Have only included those data that were part of group work. Did not do other field notes outside of group assignments. / Consistent field notes beyond those of group assignments. All drawings show progress. / Field notes to go with sketching. Shows excellent progress in documenting visually the species and geophysical encounters.
Number of days delay in submission the report (20% deduction for each day of late submission)
Total Score (Out of 40)
Total Score on a scale of 10 marks