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I am looking for ideas for my students on how to fulfill the teaching of TEK 5.3C-draw or develop a model that represents how something works or looks that cannot be seen such as how a soda dispensing machine works. I tried poster and model, but got a poor turn in, and the rubric was not followed on the posters. Thanks for any ideas.

Good ideas. Thanks for the input. I've got lots of thinking and planning to do this summer :)

I always found that students loved Rube Goldberg devices and to start brainstorming with your class and having some fun, you might explore using one of the Rube Goldberg comics or something else from the official site. There are neat Rube Goldberg contests, too. Here is the site: http://www.rubegoldberg.com/ Reverse engineering is also a great technique. Gather a bunch of old things from garage sales etc and let the students take them apart to see how they work. You could then segue into more formal representations of ideas with physical models, cartoons, or posters. The trick may be to select devices or machines that are found in the real world of the child. ~patty

Hi Bonnie,
There are gobs of resources in the NLC on models. I created three collections a while back that have many of the resources organized by grade levels.
Here are the URLs:
Models in the Elementary Science Classroom
Models in the Middle School Science Classroom
Models in the High School Science Classroom
I thought this book chapter was particularly helpful:
Understanding Models
Good luck.
Carolyn

These are two fun ways: • Mystery Tubes: http://undsci.berkeley.edu/lessons/mystery_tubes.html • FossWeb Black boxes: http://www.fossweb.com/modules3-6/ModelsandDesigns/index.html

Very cool stuff! thanks