Caldwell,+Stacy

2-D-2_Caldwell Blog Lesson Plan

Class and Grade Level: 7th grade Science (1-2 class periods of 47 minutes each)

Objectives: Students will be able to... 
 * Utilize our class blog to share what they learned about the scientific method from watching an episode of Mythbusters.
 * Write a well-organized blog post
 * Comment on other students blog posts

Procedures: 1. Review the Scientific Method using Powerpoint and worksheet. 2. Watch a video clip of an episode of Mythbusters from YouTube or DiscoveryStreaming. 3. Discuss with the class why Mythbusters follows the Scientific Method 4. Introduce class blog and discuss what blogging is and why we will use it for our class project. Use “Blogs in Plain English” clip from YouTube to help explain and show visually. 5. Hand out calendar and project explanation. 2 students per week will be responsible for blogging about an episode of Mythbusters on our class blog. They must include the following in the blog post:    6. Students in the class must respond with blog comments each week to one of the blog posts.  7. Answer any other questions students may have about project and blogging.  8. Create the first blog post as a class using the video clip from the start of class as the example.  9. HW- Comment on the blog post we created today during class. <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: normal;"> <span style="background-color: transparent; display: block; font-family: Times; font-size: medium; line-height: normal;"> Assessment- Each week I will give homework credit to students for completing the comment assignment. The students who post the blogs each week will be graded as follows: >>
 * A summary of the episode
 * A list of the steps of the scientific method with examples from the episode.
 * An opinion on whether they liked the episode or not and why.
 * 3 questions that their classmates will need to answer in their blog comments. These should be open-ended questions, not yes or no answers.
 * Summary of Episode- 5 points
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Scientific Method Steps and Examples- 10 points
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Opinion- 5 points
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Questions for comments- 5 points
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Mechanics- Spelling, organization, grammar- 5 points
 * <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Total Points- 30