Week 3--Question 9

If the polar ice caps melt completely then the Earth has gone through a rapid global warming process. With the melting ice caps, the ocean water levels will have increased causing a change everywhere. Low lying land that was one inhabitable for animals and people, would now be under water. Flooding will have occurred in many places. Plants and animals that were indigenous to cold ecosystems will now struggle for survival. However, most will probably end up going extinct. Also, the fresh water from the glaciers would melt and change the salinity of ocean water. This would also affect the lively hood of many species of coral, tropical fish, and other sea life that require a tender balance of salinity. Most other sea life could not withstand the great swing in pH that would occur in the water. For humans, our food supply from plants to animals would be in jeopardy. With plants becoming extinct our oxygen supply would also be dwindling. So as one can see, if the ice caps were to melt, the entire life as we know it here on Earth would not be the same and we would be looking at becoming extinct like the dinosaurs did when the Earth turned cold.

Other questions:

How could you have students use this experience and relate it to land, plants, animals, etc?

5 E's Lesson Plan

After completing my lesson plan using the 5 E's lesson format, I realized that I basically do my lesson planning in a similar fashion. However, I think the "5 E" format made me plan in greater detail than I typically would. This format reminded me of the lessons that were required of us to write in our undergrad student teaching program. At the time, I did not understand why we had to write in such great detail. I now know that if you do not have it in your plans, there's a good chance you are not going to get to covering it or asking that particular question. I enjoyed using the "5 E" lesson format and found that even though it was a longer lesson to type up, it took less time to construct the plan.

The lesson I wrote up was one on mitosis. It was a lab where the students would model the stages using Oreo cookies and sprinkles. To activate their background knowledge and build upon that knowledge, a BBK (building background knowledge) activity would be completed prior to the lab. I actually taught this lesson a few weeks ago in my seventh grade class. The students always enjoy doing BBK's regardless of the topic. For the most part, the lesson went well, I had a few students who struggled with the lab. I think it was more about not following instructions than about ability level. I should add that I teach one seventh grade SPED class and three sixth grade classes. There were not any logistical or practical issues with the lesson other than that it took two class periods: one to complete the BBK and one to do the actual lab.