Eroding Away: A Weathering Tour

The Foundation

Study after study shows students learn best when they’re able to engage in authentic and interactive
learning experiences. But, how can teachers provide this when students are studying a process that
can take years and isn’t easily visible in their own neighborhood? That’s the question fifth grade
Math/Science teachers at Nance Elementary worked to solve. The weathering tour activity was
developed as a collaborative effort between, Mrs. Jamie Robinson and Mrs. Heather Morgan, along
with the campus librarian, Mrs. April Scott.

Thanks to proper city and community planning, most students today live in communities and
urban areas that actually see little to no deposition or erosion. Since students often lack real world
experience with the area of study, teachers were on the hunt for a digital learning tool that could
provide a way to make connections.

Google Earth Tour Builder proved to be the perfect tool for the task! Students were able to virtually
explore a variety of locations and see real life examples of what they were studying in science.
“It is hard to appreciate and understand the beauty of what is created through nature by just looking
pre-selected pictures in a textbook,” stated Mrs. Robinson. She also described, “This activity
gave them a chance to explore the locations that were assigned, as well as locations they were
curious about.” Students were actively engaged as they surveyed a few of their own favorite spots.

The Standard

The standard for this assignment was Science TEK 5.7 B: students should recognize how
landforms such as deltas, canyons, and sand dunes are the result of changes to Earth’s surface
by wind, water, and ice.

The Student Driven Process

“Tour Builder is a Beta Google Experiment that I came across recently”, said Mrs. April Scott.
“I was impressed with how easy it is to use and the students were able to easily present their
information to other classes.” Mrs. Scott explained how to use the tool for learning and because it
was so intuitive, the students went right to work.  Mrs. Morgan liked how she could check students
understanding when they added images and videos with each additional stop on their tour.

         

Students Hayden H. and Veronika C. said, “We love science and weathering and erosion are
interesting, but the best part of the project was working with the third graders.”  

@mrsscottreads @MrsJCay collaborating with 3rd grade. My students are teaching them how weathering and erosion shaped the land. Thanks April for this amazing idea. pic.twitter.com/GzUHUSru7z

— Jamie Robinson (@jamrobrob) December 11, 2018

"What I liked about this project was the fact that you could actually visit the place just like you
would in real life." "I also like the fact that you can share it so that people can visit places and
discover the place if they haven't been there before," said Queen T.

Students spent a majority of their time working on their tours in class, however they were able to
go to the library for any assistance that they needed along the way.

Following this, students were given the task to prepare a presentation documenting their findings
and tours to the third grade students who were also completing their unit on land forms.   

Text Features and Digital Magazines

Text structure refers to how the information within a written text is organized. This strategy helps students understand that a text might present a main idea and details; a cause and then its effects; and/or different views of a topic. Students in Mrs. Brittain’s class, at Nance Elementary, were asked to pick a research topic of their choice. Once they picked their topic they spent several days researching using different library databases, websites, and books with reliable information over their topic. Once they had enough information, they wrote three articles using 3 different text structures: chronological order/sequencing, compare/contrast, and problem/solution.  

After revising and editing their articles they were given a choice of how to present them. The culminating, summative activity, students chose was to create digital magazines using a tool called Canva.  In Canva, students combined the different text features and graphics to add to the reader’s understanding of their topic. This is where they had the most fun.

Aahana stated, “I liked this project because it was really fun. Using Canva there are a lot more things that you can add to your project such as different layouts, pictures, and graphics. You have more freedom than you would if you had created a magazine using construction paper and it allows you to show off your creativity.  I enjoyed researching and learning about snow leopards.”

“I think doing this project on Canva was better than using paper because it allows your reader to visualize your topic.  You can also add a lot more features using the technology that you would not have been able to do if you had just used paper and pencil.” said Sophia

Caroline said, “I enjoyed doing this project because it allowed you to have multiple varieties and styles of your magazine because we used Canva. For example, you can match your layout and graphics to the topic of your magazine. Canva gives you the freedom to make it look the way you want it to look.”

This type of learning project integrated several of the ISTE Standards which are so important for the empowered learner.   

• Digital Citizen Students recognize the rights, responsibilities and opportunities of living, learning and working in an interconnected digital world, and they act and model in ways that are safe, legal and ethical.
•  Knowledge Constructor Students critically curate a variety of resources using digital tools to construct knowledge, produce creative artifacts and make meaningful learning experiences for themselves and others.
• Innovative Designer Students use a variety of technologies within a design process to identify and solve problems by creating new, useful or imaginative solutions.
• . Creative Communicator Students communicate clearly and express themselves creatively for a variety of purposes using the platforms, tools, styles, formats and digital media appropriate to their goals.
• Global Collaborator Students use digital tools to broaden their perspectives and enrich their learning by collaborating with others and working effectively in teams locally and globally.

Kid Created News

Teachers know the importance of communication from the classroom to the community. Our teacher challenged the class to come up with ideas of new ways to send out monthly newsletters to our parents. Getting students involved and to take charge of this classroom task was quite a challenge. Mrs. Degnan, 4th grade teacher, Nance Elementary had the students look at several options and once she picked her editors it became clear to use the subscription service called Smore.com.

The top editors were chosen by Mrs. Degnan and the class. Redd, McKenzi, and Lexi where honored with this position. All three students were chosen because of their leadership and their ability to get the job done. The team begun to hire other students for the different jobs: photographers and writers. Publications feature articles about each of our content area subjects, as well as the exciting happenings going on in 4th grade and around the building. Articles included, diagrams, fun facts, pictures and/or videos. We used the classroom iPads at first for our choice of device, but sometimes quality was an issue. We eventually hired a student who was a professional photographer/videographer who participated in the photography club at school. This made our pictures and videos much higher quality! We also borrowed laptops from 5th grade because they were more adept at meeting our needs and were easier to navigate than the ipads.

Over time we wanted to include student made video tutorials explaining how they did the problems in math (division, multiplication, etc.). We also added many science videos too. We had another great idea...interviews! It became our mission to feature all students in our classes. It was easy to feature kids that stand out, but we found that some of our reluctant or shy students have loved having the opportunity to be highlighted. Some of the students in our class were really good at interviewing people so we hired them. These students chose special people to interview and even formed their own questions. We interviewed people like Mrs. Chaney, the principal, PTA members, and teachers and they became part of our interactive newsletter. This exchange of information became a teaching/learning tool as well. Students that missed concepts or did not understand a concept would ask for videos to made for better understanding. Students led these informal tutoring sessions and parents were delighted to understand how their child was learning in school.

To engage our readers, we added an interesting piece called “Fun Facts”. Throughout the given school day students would walk around ask weird things like “How many teeth does a rhino have?” so we researched them and posted them on our newsletter. Our students here at Nance are extremely good writers so we have a section to showcase student work like essays and poems. A LOT OF POEMS! Again, student work became the highlight of our newsletter. We wanted to give all students a voice in our newsletter.

Our teacher nominated us to present our newsletters at TechnoExpo 2016. We had a blast preparing our presentation and as luck would have it, one of our editors came down with Pneumonia. McKenzi and Lexi brainstormed ways that Redd could still participate even though he had become very ill. We called our campus IT Coach and she suggested why not use the web conferencing tool called Zoom? With her help we ZOOMED Redd in and they presentation went as scheduled – the girls were at NHS and Redd was at home. We felt empowered and our presentation was great!


Our newsletter has sparked the interest of hundreds of followers around the world. We have been delighted in the response. Check us out! We really are fabulous!

We hope to inspire students all across the world to use technology to present and share their work to others.

This article was written by Redd, Lexi, and McKenzi in collaboration with Mrs. Egle

Click each image to view our newsletters

It's a Trip, It's a Guide, It's a Wall....It's Cabeza De Vaca

4th grade students at Nance Elementary explored Cabeza De Vaca in Social Studies. Mrs. Cochran and Mrs. Clemons wanted to give their class the opportunity to expand on the DBQ's that were written in class.  Pairs of students had the choice of creating a digital timeline of Cabeza's adventure, a guide of his journey, or a wall of his accomplishments.  The class truly enjoyed expanding on their research and getting to choose how to showcase their learning for others.

Emma and Paige teamed up to use Padlet.  "We included a lot on our wall, because we had already researched information about Cabeza De Vaca." Paige added, "I was reminded that we should enjoy the life that we have now.  It was rough for Cabeza de Vaca.  I learned that they had to travel for years on foot when we can just get in our cars to go places, or use our phones to communicate."
  
Jack created an interactive map using Tripline.  "I learned that Cabeza De Vaca crashed into Tampa Bay, FL and my map let others see the exact line of where he went.  I choose pictures from Google images for each spot on my map and explained what Cabeza De Vaca did while he was there." 

According to John and Layton, who created a Snapguide,"We learned that Cabeza De Vaca was a surgeon. We were able to show in our guide how he survived." John decided to embed a video to conclude his Snapguide and said that this feature helped him include all of details that he learned in one slide.

Layton sums it up best when he says, "This project was a lot of fun and I would recommend all of these sites.  I did a Snapguide, but after seeing my friends projects, I want to create a map too.  It is important for us to learn with technology because when we get to Middle School and High School we will be using it a lot."    

While reflecting on the project, Mrs. Cochran comments, "It was hard to convince myself to let the students use programs that I did not fully understand myself, but I'm glad that I did.  We all worked together and they created some really great visuals that we can share with others."  

Jack and Brock's Tripline Map

Tara and John's SnapGuide

Layton and Christian's SnapGuide

Paige and Emma's Padlet (Embedded Below)