THE AMAZON RAINFOREST 

 (http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/kids/)

GOOD AFTERNOON PARENTS AND STUDENTS! 

As part of our Ecosystem studies we will be exploring the tropical rainforest using technology in the classroom. We will be going on a mission through a webquest. A webquest is an inquiry-oriented lesson format in which students collect information in the form of tasks through the web. The WebQuest was designed for 1st grade students studying ecosystems. They have studied all of the different ecosystems around the world, but as a class we have spent the majority of the time studying the Topical Rainforest Ecosystem. Groups of students will go on a mission with Captain Rainmaker through the rainforest, making discoveries and conducting research all along the way. When Captain Rainmaker and the students complete their research and finish their mission, they will have 3 different choices on how they will present their findings to other students and adults informing them on, how and why we should protect the tropical rainforest. The students FINAL mission will be done in pairs. Students will go on a scavenger hunt around the school using QR codes and Twitter (to communicate with me). They will record their answers on a QR code template and this will be used as their final assessment on the tropical rainforest ecosystem.

Thank you! 

Mrs. Young  

Educational Value of Animoto...

I would use this short video clip as a hook to draw the students into the unit. I want students to start thinking about what it is we will be learning about in the unit, questions they may have, things that they saw, how are they connected? We will brainstorm a list of things that they saw in the video and begin to think about what this unit is all about. I think videos are a great way to engage an audience. At the end of the unit, students should be able to watch this video again and tell me exactly what happened to the Rain Forest and answer our essential question, How will you protect the Earth? 

Implementation of Tagxedo in my WebQuest...

My WebQuest is geared to a 1-2 classroom, I plan on using my Wordle (Tagxedo) much like a K-W-L chart, as well as, a tool to measure growth. Before I begin my unit on ecosystems, I would have the students create a Wordle on everything they KNOW about ecosystems already. they would incorporate the word ecosystem, terms they know and questions they have about ecosystems into their initial Wordle. While we go through the unit, the students ecosystem knowledge would increase. Then at the end of the unit, I would have students create another Wordle on what they have LEARNED. That is them "L" part of the K-W-L and the final assessment to measure the students growth. This will be a great way for students to visually see what they have learned, to review their initial Wordle to see if they can answer any of their questions and a wonderful outline for students to take away from the entire unit.

-Erin :-)