Examining Curriculum Materials: Food For Plants

Examining Curriculum Materials: III A & B: Engaging Students with Real World Phenomena (Examples)

Learning Goal: Benchmark 5E6-8 #1: 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.

Name of material: Food for Plants by Kathy Roth

Major Criterion	Indicators - What must a material do to meet the criterion?	Yes or No	Justification and Citation How does the material meet this indicator? OR Why does this material fail to meet this indicator? Be sure to give specific examples
Category III : Engaging Students with Relevant Phenomena Criterion A: Providing variety of phenomena Does the material provide multiple and varied phenomena to support the learning goal? Criterion B: Providing vivid experiences Does the material provide an appropriate balance of firsthand and vicarious experiences with real world examples/phenomena that are explicitly linked to the learning goals?	A1. The material provides real world examples/phenomena that are relevant to the learning goals.	Yes	Students grow beans (activity #6) and grass seeds (activity #8) to explore how plants make food. Students also consider an historical experiment (activity #9) that illustrates that soil is not food for plants.
	A2. The material makes clear to the students the relationship between real world examples/phenomena and the learning goals.	Yes	Activity 10 uses the burning of a peanut to illustrate that food provides energy. Then, the teacher shows that a vitamin pill does not burn and the students understand that things that burn provide energy and can be food and things that don't burn do not provide energy and, therefore they cannot be food. This phenomena illustrates learning goal #2: identify examples and non-examples of food as energy-containing material.
	A3. The real world examples/phenomena are likely to be comprehensible to students.	Yes	The bean and grass experiments rely on phenomena that are in the experience of most students. Vocabulary is introduced in context.
	B1. When practical and appropriate, the material provides firsthand experiences with real world examples/phenomena that are explicitly linked to the learning goals.	Yes	Students grow beans (activity #6) and grass seeds (activity #8) to explore how plants make food.
	B2. The material provides other experiences (e.g. text, pictures, video) that give students a vicarious sense of real world examples/phenomena.	Yes	The materials provide photographs to help students understand bean growth and photosynthesis. The material includes overheads and hand-outs with diagrams and pictures related to the learning goals. Example:13.1 - 8 shows a series of drawings that illustrate the cellular structures of a plant leaf.
	B3. The set of experiences is efficient, i.e. the benefits justify the costs in time and money.	Yes	The activities and materials are reasonable in price and efficient in time.