I. Curricular Framework

Concept:

Perspective

Essential Question:

How does compost help us preserve the earth?

Bridge:

Recycling

Content:

Outcomes:

II. Standards Aligned

III. Instruction and Assessment

1. Connect: Connecting to the Concept Experientially

Objective: Students recognize their connection to something they value.
Activity: Students bring a favorite toy or doll to school and show the class. They tell the class why it is their favorite.
Assessment: Students can talk about their item.

2. Attend: Attending to the Connection

Objective: Students reflect on the loss of something important to them.
Activity: Students toys are put into plastic bags and placed in a clean trash can. Students make a sound to express how they felt when an item they valued was thrown away.
Assessment: Student makes a sound expressing emotion

Assessment, Phase One, Level of Engagement, Fascination:

3. Image: Creating a Mental Picture

Objective: Students create value of something they thought didn’t have value.
Activity: Teacher brings in a can of trash and dumps it on the ground. (This way teacher can select what is put in there.) Teacher asks students what they see. Students sort the trash and discuss how it can be used. They create something of value from it with glue, markers, tape (a toy, a doll, a game, etc.) They name this item and present it to the class.
Assessment: The item is recognizable to the other children in class to be what the student says it is – a doll, a pet, or a toy.

Assessment, Phase Two, Seeing the Big Picture:

4. Inform: Receiving Facts & Knowledge

Objective: Students learn the process of creating soil from compost.
Activity: Teacher provides direct instruction with graphics and text on the process involved in creating soil from trash through what materials do well in compost, which ones take longer and why.

Assessment: Students answer questions on the process

Assessment, Phase Three, Success with Acquiring Knowledge:

5. Practice: Developing Skills

Students are led out to a composting pile and can see, touch, and smell compost in its varying stages. Measurements are taken of pH, heat, acidity, etc. If available, students are taken to see plants growing in compost.

Assessment: In small groups, students are given pictures of the composting cycle on cards. They are to put these cards in order and each student takes one or two cards and explains to the teacher how the composting cycle works. The teacher also asks comprehension questions.

Assessment, Phase Four, Success with Acquiring Skills:

6. Extend: Extending Learning to the Outside World

Objective: Students create compost using trash and soil at school, and also can bring selected trash items from home.
Activity: Students set up a composting bin or enclosure and fill it with trash and soil materials. If it is to be an ongoing compost project, room is left at the top to add materials. Compost is maintained (watered and turned) and measurements are taken on a regular basis (heat, etc.) and recorded on a graph.
Assessment: Compost and records are maintained by class on a regular basis.

7. Refine: Refining the Extension

Objective: Results of compost making are evaluated after 6 weeks to see if the compost is creating soil as intended.
Activity: Measurements are taken and a sample of compost is compared with soil from a completed composing cycle. Differences are discussed in class and students (individually and then in groups) decide if changes need to be made to composing process.
Assessment: Students participate in data collection and comparison and decision making process.

8. Perform: Creative Manifestation of Material Learned

Objective: Students synthesize compost making experience in an audiovisual presentation and use the soil for plants.
Activity: Students present results of compost making process (pictures/samples/graphs) at a parent night or science fair. (Power Point presentation/iMovie/display)
OTHER SUGGESTIONS: Plants are grown in soil for school fundraiser/Soil is donated to a community garden or distributed to students’ families. Students start their own compost at home, and answer the essential question, “How does compost help us to love the earth?”
Assessment: All steps in composting process are included in presentation. The final sample looks like dirt! Plants grow in it.

Assessment, Phase Five,Performance, Creative Use of Material Learned: