Student+Activities

The Activities are planned and organized within the framework produced by the Tentative Flight Plan and the Curriculum Overview.

= The Unit and Duration = The unit is planned for a period of 3 weeks around the Indiana State Education Standards referenced in Curricular Standards and Objectives.

= Preparing Students and Setting the Environment = The classroom should be set up to facilitate group work.If the classroom activities were usually the traditional teacher centered activities, students would need to pass a deliberate transition process into a self driven learning process as required by PBL. Group work/collaboration activities/team building activities can be done prior to this unit (for example, [|NASA’s surviving on the moon] ) to ensure that students are comfortable working in groups and understand that it is possible to have more than one correct answer for an ill structured (realistic) problem.

= Entry Event = The entry event, as indicated by the flight plan, will be a Biomass Film Activity. (Few examples of such video clips can be observed here) The intent is to engage students in media that they are familiar with while sparking their interest. After the clip, students will break into groups to discuss the video. This activity serves as a preparation for the Driving Question.

= Student Investigations on the Basis of the Driving Question = The driving question ( How can we produce energy for our community from available biomass in a sustainable manner?) can be solved in multiple ways. For example, students may decide they want to work with biomass in their local community, surrounding areas, or the viability of having it shipped in. Students also have an opportunity to define how much energy produced is “enough;” see Facilitating the Driving Question for more in depth information.

Based on their individual group projects, students will need to collect enough data to develop a solution that they can then present to the appropriate community stakeholder (as defined by the student group, i.e. if the community is defined as the school their highest stakeholders might include the principal and superintendent). Students must gather evidence to support their stance or how they have produced energy for a sustainable biomass. This will be collected in their lab journal/electronic journal. Their evidence will include, but is not limited to, research and data generated by their biodiesel laboratories.

=** Activities **=  (see Tentative Flight Plan and Assignment List) Required: Energy and Its Forms, Biofuel Film Activity, Fair Oaks Dairy Field Trip, Unpacking Fair Oaks Dairy Field Trip,, Research Plan, Reflections, , Biofuel Presentation, Concept Map, [|Unit Quiz] Group Determined Activities: Making bio-fuel from selected biomass, determining amount of energy produced by that biomass(ie. calorimetry lab), type of presentation

These activities will make students experts in the area they intend to research, creating student ownership. Because the students have to define the parameters of their investigation, such as “community” and “sustainable” student have to become engaged and actively involved.

[|Thermochemistry Guided Discovery] content webpage that walks students through thermochemistry content. This should be used if students are having trouble understanding basic thermochemistry content, such has the difference between temperature and heat. [|Molecular Motion and Heat Flow] This small scale lab specifically related to exothermic and endothermic reactions and should be used if students are having trouble relating molecular motion to heat. The lab only requires test tubes, different salts, and water. Students should use the terms system, surroundings, and heat flow to describe the reactions. This would be a good time to discuss the idea of "heat loss" and efficiency of a system.
 * Content Driven "just-in-time" instructional resources **