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Anita Pauly Bessie Calabrese Joanna Rasmussen

You can choose any topic and look for the objectives. I will be helping you throughout the process. The best resource would be the second part of the textbook. I will need two groups to be volunteered to teach.

Go to the engagement page to start writing your activity! Go to the exploration page to develop your activity **The Template for The Group Activities**

**Objectives**
> ==== Students will be able to: ==== >
 * 1) **Content:**
 * ====Tell a friend or parent who a paleontologist is and what they do. ====
 * ====Explain what a fossil is ====
 * ====Explain how we use fossils to learn about the past ====
 * ====Make his/her own fossil using clay ====
 * 1) ====**Scientific Inquiry:** Students will make predictions as to how they think fossils occur.  ====
 * 2) ====**Nature of Science:** Science relies on empirical evidence. There is not just one at which science is done.  ====

**Standards:**
> ====<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">11.A.1a: Describe an observed event. ==== > ====<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">11.A.1e: Compare observations of individual and group results. ==== > ====<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">12.B.1a: Describe and compare characteristics of living things in relationship to their environments. ==== > ====<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">12.A.1b: Explain why similar results are expected when procedures are done the same. ==== > ====<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">12.A.1c: Explain how knowledge can be gained by careful observation. ==== > ====<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">1I: Stimulates prior knowledge and links new ideas to already familiar ideas and experiences. ==== > ====<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">2I: Evaluates teaching resources and materials for appropriateness as related to curricular content and each student's needs. ==== > ====<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">2N: Facilitates learning experiences that makes connections to other content areas and to life experiences. ====
 * 1) ====<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">**NSES (Teaching and Content),** ====
 * 2) ====<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">**ISBE (Goals 11, 12, and 13)** ====
 * 1) ====<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">**IPTS** ====

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">**Materials:**

 * <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">The imprinted clay and objects the students used to create their fossils.
 * <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">The students' different fossils.
 * <span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Compare/contrast charts.

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">**Rationale:**
<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Fossils and paleontology are beneficial for students to learn about so they can be exposed to history as well as be able to comprehend how things occurred in the past.

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">**Background Knowledge:**
====<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">Teacher will ask students if they have ever heard of or seen a fossil and if they have ever seen a dinosaur. We know what dinosaurs look like because of fossils. Teacher will ask students what they use to remember things that happened in their past. Such as taking photographs, drawing pictures, writing in a journal, etc. Teacher will explain what fossils are and that by finding fossils we are able to learn about things that have occurred in the past and what animals lived in those times. ====

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">**Procedure (5-E Model)**
====<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">- Engagement: Students will be engaged in the learning process. They will engage in making fossils. Students will answer questions and be shown pictures at the beginning of class about paleontologists. They will examine fossils and discuss with their peers. ==== ====<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">- Exploration: Students will explore fossils throughout this science lesson. Students will make their own fossils by using clay and imprinting objects into it. Students will explore the other students' fossils. ====

<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">**- Explanation: Ask students:**
> ====<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Paleontologists discover and examine fossils for clues about life that existed in the past. They determine where the fossils came from and what the fossils are. Paleontologists spend time outside hunting for fossils and spend time in a laboratory cleaning, identifying and examining their discoveries. They use drills, chisels, picks and toothbrushes to dig out the fossils from the ground. They clean fossils with soft small brushes, to brush off all the dirt and sand. Paleontologists use microscopes to examine their discoveries. They record their findings in notebooks and mark their discoveries on a map. ==== > > ====<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Dinosaurs do not live on the earth today, but by finding fossils, we are able to discover what dinosaurs looked like and characteristics about them. ==== > >
 * ====<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">What is a paleontologist? ====
 * ====<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">What is a fossil? ====
 * ====<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">How are fossils made? ====
 * ====<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">What differences and similarities are there between the fossils you created? ====

**<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">Resources: **
__<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">http://youth.net/cec/cecsci/cecsci.49.txt __ __<span style="font-family: Tahoma,Geneva,sans-serif;">@http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/sciencefacts/earth/fossils.html __

**The Rubric and Essential Features for Teaching a Science Lesson**


 * **The Four-Point Rubric for Teaching an Integrated Science and Math Lesson.** ||
 * 1= Excellent || Full Accomplishment: |||||||||||| Strategy and execution meet the content, process, and qualitative demands for the task. Communication and classroom management are effective. There is strong evidence that the teachers prepared for the lesson profoundly and implemented a learner-centered (inquiry –based) instructional approach. Both Science and NOS concepts were targeted explicitly. ||
 * 2= Proficient || Substantial Accomplishments |||||||||||| With a minimal feedback it could work to full accomplishment. Errors are minor. There is evidence that the teachers prepared a learner-centered/inquiry-based lesson and implemented the lesson masterly. However, the lesson and instructional approach need a minimal correction. For example, some details are ignored or for learner response the waiting time little bit short or long or engagement activity/question(s) was little bit irrelevant. ||
 * 3= Marginal || Partial Accomplishment |||||||||||| Part of the task is accomplished, but there is lack of evidence of understanding or evidence of not understanding. The instructional approach was more teacher-centered. The classroom management and accommodation were ineffective. The concepts were partially targeted in the activity. Direct input or further teaching is required. ||
 * 4= Unsatisfactory || Little Accomplishment |||||||||||| The task is attempted and some scientific efforts are made. There may be fragments of accomplishment but little or no success. The lesson was completely teacher-centered and the activity was irrelevant to the subject and concepts. The lesson was prepared poor. The teachers need to be educated and trained in order to be able to prepare and teach inquiry-based science lessons. ||
 * **Scores** ||
 * **Essential Features** || 1 || 2 || 3 || 4 || Feedback/Evidence ||
 * The teachers started to class by explaining the activity and its objectives. In order to engage students with the subject, the teachers used questioning skills effectively, and also did one or more of following activities: demonstrating a short activity/ showing videos or pictures or any subject related documents/ reading a story book/ playing a game. ||  ||   ||   ||   ||   ||
 * The teachers set up the class properly for the activity and explained or provided the materials, including instructional sheet, for each group or student to implement the activity. During the activity the teachers actively engaged learners in scientific inquiry. ||  ||   ||   ||   ||   ||
 * The Teachers assisted to learners to share their conclusions and/or develop and evaluate explanations that address scientifically oriented questions. ||  ||   ||   ||   ||   ||
 * The teachers assisted to learners to make connections between the concepts and their daily life experiences. ||  ||   ||   ||   ||   ||
 * The teachers explicitly taught the observation versus inference and tentative science in the activity. ||  ||   ||   ||   ||   ||
 * The teachers provided brief explanation about the science concepts and the target NOS concepts and allowed learners to make any comments and ask questions. ||  ||   ||   ||   ||   ||
 * ***Please put Ö under the score and provide feedback/evidence if necessary. ||  ||