Examining Curriculum Materials: Food For Plants

Examining Curriculum Materials: Category IV: Developing and Using Scientific Ideas

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
Criterion C: Representing ideas effectively Does the material include accurate and comprehensible representations of the learning goals?	1. The material includes accurate representations related to the learning goals (or asks students to critique representations that are not accurate).	Yes	Activity # 14 has students represent that plants are made up of cells by creating a sand-painting of a plant. Each individual sand grain represents a cell. Activity #14 relates to the learning goal because students need to understand that photosynthesis is a process that occurs in the cells of a plant.
	2. The representations are likely to be comprehensible to students.	Yes	Activity #14 is comprehensible to students because it uses vocabulary introduced previously. It also uses examples and materials most students are familiar with.
	3. The material asks students to consider what the representations show and do not show or invites them to compare the representations to what is being represented..	Yes	Activity #14 asks students how the sand plant is a good model for a real plant and then has them consider ways that the sand plant is not a good model for a real plant.
	4. The representations clearly distinguish between accurate ideas in the learning goals and common naïve alternatives describe in the learning research literature.	Yes	A common naïve conception is that plants have a few cells, not that plants are composed completely of cells. This representation helps students visualize cells as the building blocks of a plant and the location of photosynthesis.