Energy Alternatives!

Subject Area(s):

• K-12: Science
• K-12: Language Arts

Grade Level(s):

• 5th-6th Grade

Description:

Fifth graders will research different kinds of alternative energy sources. After some initial independent research, students will work in groups of 3-4 on researching one kind of alternative energy. Final projects will be posters and displays that the students will present at an "energy fair" in the school gym.

Goals & Objectives:

Instructional Goals:

Students will

• access information from online sources effectively and efficiently.
• extract information from sources and pose questions of further interest.
• synthesize information.
• present arguments for why their type of alternative energy should be used.
• make effective presentations.

Learning Objectives:

Students will be able to

• perform a successful search on the online encyclopedia and three selected websites.
• locate the information needed from the online encyclopedia and websites to fill in their worksheets.
• come up with four additional questions that they have on their topic.
• come up with at least three reasons why their type of alternative energy should be used.
• work in teams to create a poster and presentation about their topic, using their worksheet as the basis.
• present information both orally and in a poster format.

Motivational Goals:

• To increase students’ confidence in their researching abilities.
• To raise students’ excitement about the research process.
• To encourage students’ desire and confidence in being able to disseminate and present information.

Materials:

See attached lesson plan in Supporting Files

Feedback Form [see Supporting Files]

Alternative Energy Worksheet [see Supporting Files]

Procedures:

See attached lesson plan in Supporting Files

Assessment:

See attached lesson plan in Supporting Files

Supporting Files:

• panshinworksheet.doc
  Alternative Energy Worksheet
• panshinwspart2.doc
  Research Process Feedback Form
• Energy_Alternatives.doc
  Complete Lesson Plan

Standards:

National Information Literacy Standards (K-12)

Accesses information efficiently and effectively.

• Formulates questions based on information needs.
• Develops and uses successful strategies for locating information.

Evaluates information critically and competently.

• Selects information appropriate to the problem or question at hand.

Strives for excellence in information seeking and knowledge generation.

• Assesses the quality of the process and products of personal information seeking.

Participates effectively in groups to pursue and generate information.

• Collaborates with others, both in person and through technologies, to identify information problems and to seek their solutions.

Information Skills and Subskills (K-16)

Definition

• Identifies requirements of research task
• Considers potential topics

Planning

• Creates a general framework for organizing information found

Exploration

• Explores range of information resources

Collection

• Locates relevant information within selected sources
• Identifies and extracts relevant information from selected sources

Organization

• Filters out irrelevant information
• Summarizes/synthesizes/classifies final information
• Organizes final information for presentation

Presentation

• Presents results

Evaluation

• Evaluates end product
• Subject: K-12: Language Arts

National Content Standards (K-12)

Reading

• Uses reading skills and strategies to understand and interpret a variety of informational texts

Listening and Speaking

• Uses listening and speaking strategies for different purposes
• Subject: K-12: Science

Physical Sciences

• Understands the sources and properties of energy

Nature of Science

• Understands the nature of scientific knowledge