Overview

"Save The Lily Pond" is a Web Quest that has been designed as an inquiary based learning tool. Through the use of this Web Quest, second grade children will work independently and in groups, researching the life cycle of pond creatures, specifically the frog, dragon fly, and giant water bug. At the conclusion, the children will present to the Mayor a fully illustated book depicting the life cycle of their pond creature. The students' goal is to convince the mayor of the importance of their habitat for their survival. In the process students will stop the destruction of the Lily Pond to build a Shopping Mall.

Please keep in mind that some of the students in class may have lower reading skills and will require extra assistance from their teacher. This webquest is designed to have a lot of input from the teacher in multiples forms, such as reading aloud and checking student rubrics for understanding.

This lesson includes components for learners of Multiple Intelligences. There are aspects that will appeal to Visual/spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, linguistic, interpersonal, intrapersonal and logical mathematical learners.

This lesson also accounts for the levels of Bloom's Taxonomy. As the lesson progresses, the students work their way up the scale, gathering knowledge, showing comprehension, applying their learning, and then analyzing the data. They then have to synthesize a product that shows their understanding of the life cycle. There is also an evaluation aspect of this lesson in the moral issue involved in saving the pond for the survival of the creatures.

This lesson also is designed with concern for Gregorc's multiple learning styles. There are aspects that will appeal to each of the four learning styles. Concrete Sequential, Concrete Random, Abstract Sequential, and Abstract Random students will all be able to succeed in this lesson due to the multiple activities and methods of teaching involved.

This lesson instills a sense of meaning in the learners by putting them in the role of life-saver for the creatures of the pond. By answering the plea for help, students' level of concern is raised and they engage in activities to work toward convincing the mayor to not destroy their habitat. These factors increase the chance of getting the learned information into the students' long-term memory for permanent storage. In working toward saving the lives of living creatures, the students can also get emotionally involved, stimulating the amygdala and motivating them.

Each of the activities involved in this lesson serve toward increasing the rate of retention of information learned. Lecture, reading, and visual cues all have low percentages of retention, but as the activities become more student directed, the rate of retention increases. As the students discuss and present their information, the chance of real learning increases and in the part of the lesson where the student assumes the role of teacher to their group, the highest likelihood of long-term storage is realized.

Goals & Objectives

• Read “The Very Hungry Caterpillar” by Eric Carle
• Work in groups to research and complete worksheets on the life cycle of the frog, dragonfly, and giant water bug.
• Write and illustrate a book about the life cycle of the creature they researched.
• Present the book in class to the Mayor in an effort to save the Lily Pond.

Activities and Procedures:

Frog – tadpole; the student will know they are in the “red frog” group, researching the tadpole stage of frog development.

Afterward, in their groups, each student will print the worksheet provided in this Web Quest. They will use this worksheet to research their stage individually answering the following questions:

What is your animals name?

What phase are you researching?

How long is your creature in this phase of development?

Where does this phase of development take place?

What does your creature eat during this time?

Materials needed (for book):

Assessment:

Extension Activities:

Existing Standards

Art:
STANDARD 1.1 (Aesthetics) All students will use aesthetic knowledge in the creation of and in response to dance, music, theater, and visual art.

STANDARD 1.2 (Creation and Performance) All students will utilize those skills, media, methods, and technologies appropriate to each art form in the creation, performance, and presentation of dance, music, theater, and visual art.

Science:

STANDARD 5.5 (Characteristics of Life) All students will gain an understanding of the structure, characteristics, and basic needs of organisms and will investigate the diversity of life.

STANDARD 5.10 (Environmental Studies) All students will develop an understanding of the environment as a system of interdependent components affected by human activity and natural phenomena.

STANDARD 5.4 (Nature and Process of Technology) All students will understand the interrelationships between science and technology and develop a conceptual understanding of the nature and process of technology.

Language Arts:

STANDARD 3.1 (Reading) All students will understand and apply the knowledge of sounds, letters, and words in written English to become independent and fluent readers, and will read a variety of materials and texts with fluency and comprehension.

STANDARD 3.2 (Writing) All students will write in clear, concise, organized language that varies in content and form for different audiences and purposes.

STANDARD 3.3 (Speaking) All students will speak in clear, concise, organized language that varies in content and form for different audiences and purposes.

STANDARD 3.4 (Listening) All students will listen actively to information from a variety of sources in a variety of situations.

STANDARD 3.5 (Viewing and media literacy) All students will access, view, evaluate, and respond to print, nonprint, and electronic texts and resources.

Technological Literacy:

STANDARD 8.1 (Computer and information literacy ) All students will use computer applications to gather and organize information and to solve problems.