Jennifer Richards, Assistant Professor

We have been sharing our progress in developing outcomes and lesson plans for in- school clubs over the past few months. Below is a list of lesson plans currently awaiting publication along with a brief description of each. If you would like a copy of these lesson plans, please sent an email to James Swart indicating which lessons you would like, and he will be happy to send them to you. Once these lessons are through Marketing and Communications, they will be easily accessible on the website.

STEM Focused

The Green Life – Savannah Webb

Students begin to design an experiment to test the things needed for growth. Students will also take home a simple terrarium made of a Ziploc bag, a paper towel, and a lima bean to show how a lima bean seed begins its growth.

Physical and Chemical Changes – Savannah Webb

In this lesson, students will learn about physical and chemical changes. Physical changes will be demonstrated with play-dough and/or M&M’s Candy. The chemical change will be demonstrated by making “Elephant’s Toothpaste.”

Think Like a Scientist – Savannah Webb

Despite the artificiality of this activity, some aspects of the experience closely resemble real-life science. It can be used to teach students about the self-correcting nature of science, the tentative nature of scientific knowledge, and science as an on-going endeavor. For example, as the students are given new words, they will change their ideas of what the story may be about.

The parallel here to the way science works is that scientists will change their ideas, explanations, hypotheses or theories as they gather more information.

To Move or Not to Move – James Swart

This lesson uses a hands-on approach to learning. Students will explore the concepts of potential and kinetic energy through completing a lab related to these concepts. Students will then analyze data collected during the lab by graphing and then draw conclusions based on what they have found.

What’s Flowing? – James Swart

This lesson uses a hands-on approach to introducing and reinforcing concepts for students. The lesson begins with a pre-assessment of students’ knowledge of electricity, progresses to a demonstration of how electricity flows in a circuit, and concludes with students applying what they have learned by constructing their own simple circuit.

What’s Shakin’? – James Swart

The lesson begins with a quick pre-assessment of students’ knowledge of the states of matter. Then present information on the changes of states and different physical and chemical changes. After this, students take part in the activity and make butter. Stu- dents then participate in a debriefing activity and then draw connections between what they have learned to previous experiences.

Communications

Talk to Me – James Swart

This lesson begins with an assessment of what the students know about speech structure and what makes a good speech by using Think-Pair-Share as a pre-assessment tool. Based on the skill level assessed by the Think-Pair-Share, the lesson can be tailored to focus strictly on the areas that the students are lacking.

The lesson concludes with a brainstorming session where students are able to write a strong opening statement for their 4-H Speech.

What did you Say? – James Swart

This lesson uses student participation as a means of showing how the skills can make a speech come across very positively, or very negatively. Students get to have fun while helping demonstrate the skills to the group, which makes them more likely to remember. This lesson is a good follow up to the Talk to Me lesson, which covers what makes up a speech, and how the speech should be structured.

Social Studies

Merchants and Traders – Danielle Pleasant

Merchants and Traders is a simulation designed to teach the concepts of a barter trading system as well as supply and demand. The simulation is set from approx. 4,000bc- 44bc. time period which correlates to the ancient world history curriculum covered under the current education standards.

If you have lessons you would like converted, please send them our way! We are always looking for new and exciting lesson plans!