Kellie Burgess
UMBC
MD

Thu, Dec 05, 2019 12:09 PM
Great ideas to form a lesson!

This article is extremely helpful for building a unit for young students! The target of this unit is for students to understand the importance of bees in the ecosystem, why they need to be preserved, and the general biology and life cycle of the bee. The article is broken up into sections that describe what the students did each day for the unit. The unit follows a sequential order of information that starts off basic and gets more and more complex. This is a form of scaffolding and allows children to build off of their knowledge and inquiry. This article is also very helpful for educators because it includes a lot of information about bees in it. This is a great source for collecting factual information to guide your lessons.

Thu, Dec 05, 2019 12:01 PM
Great article for creating a long lasting lesson plan!

This article does a wonderful job of demonstrating how a science unit can run the course of a whole year! A lot of times we tend to think that science units should be two weeks at the most, however some of the most effective and memorable lessons last much longer. Of course, there is no need to extend a lesson to a whole school year if it does not fit into that type of plan, but this topic fit perfectly into a long term project. I thought it was very effective to study bees throughout the year because the students were able to see how the bees develop and change throughout the year and seasons. The lessons included hands on experiences and observations which gives the children memorable experiences and an opportunity to apply themselves. Another great piece is the discussion about multiple forms of assessment throughout the year. Assessment should be diverse and consistent, and I think that this article did a good job of addressing this. Great read!