Examining Curriculum Materials: Food For Plants

Examining Curriculum Materials: IID Taking Account of Student Ideas

Learning Goal: Benchmark 5E6-8: Food provides the fuel and the building material for all organisms. Plants use the energy from light to make sugars from carbon dioxide and water. This food can be used immediately or stored for later use.

Material: Food for Plants by Kathy Roth

Major Criterion	Indicators - What must a material do to meet the criterion?	Yes or No	How does Food for Plants meet this indicator?
Category II: Taking Account of Student Ideas Criterion D: Addressing commonly held ideas Does the material attempt to address commonly held student ideas?	1. The material explicitly addresses commonly held ideas.		Teacher's Guide p. 39 What is the commonly held student idea that this activity addresses? How does this activity alert the teacher to this commonly held idea?
	2. The material includes questions, tasks, or activities that are likely to help students progress from their initial ideas, for example, by explicitly challenging students' ideas, for example, by comparing their predictions about a phenomenon to what actually happens prompting students to contrast commonly held ideas with the scientifically correct ideas, and resolve differences between them extending correct commonly held ideas that have limited scope.		Teacher's Guide p. 39 How does the material elicit student commonly held ideas? Teacher's Guide p. 40-41 - What does the material prompt students to predict? Teacher's Guide p. 34 - What does the material ask teachers to emphasize?
	3. The material includes suggestions to teachers about how to take into account their own students' ideas.		Teacher's Guide p. 42-43 - How does the material provide teachers wi-th suggestions for taking account of student ideas? Give an example