A Map or Storyline for the Unit:

A Map or Storyline for the Unit:

Sequencing the Activities in a Conceptual Change Model

ESTABLISH THE PROBLEM AND ELICIT STUDENTS’ IDEAS Activities :

Activity (Task)	Description	Objectives
1: Wondering about Plants	Brainstorm questions and observations about plants.
2. Pretest	A rationale for the pretest is presented to the students to help them express their ideas without being concerned about a grade or "right answers."	All
3. The Pine Seed and the Log	How can this tiny seed grow into this great big tree with a huge trunk and many branches and leaves? How does the seed get its food to grow?	7
4. Defining Food	Defining food in a scientific sense: as containing energy. Is juice a food? water? sugar?	2
5. Brainstorming Hypotheses about Food for Plants	Writing and talking about our hypotheses about food for plants. Starting a class Hypothesis and Evidence chart.	2, 3, 7

EXPLORE Activities to CHALLENGE students' ideas (to provide evidence or information to support or challenge their initial hypotheses)

Activity (Task)	Description	Objectives
6. Bean seed experiment	Are seeds food for plants? Experiment to show that embryo grows only when attached to its cotyledon -- that it gets food from the cotyledon	1, 6, 7
7. Bean seed skits	Acting out a model of what is happening inside bean seeds	1, 5, 8, 9
8. Grass plant experiment	Is water food for plants? Is soil food for plants? Is sunlight food for plants? Growing grass plants in the light and the dark. The plants in the light are living and the plants in the dark are dying. The plants in the dark are getting water and food -- so is water food for plants? is soil? what about light?	8, 9
9. Jan Van Helmont’s experiment	Consider a historical experiment -- van Helmont’s evidence that soil is not food for plants.	8, 9
10. Analyzing foods for energy (calories)	Finding out that only things that contain calories are energy-containing food -- so plant food and vitamins are NOT food by scientific definition. Plant food helps plants in some way, but it does not provide food energy.	8, 9
Student Designed Experiments

EXPLAIN Scientific Concepts

Activity (Task)	Description	Objectives
11. Read about photosynthesis	Read and talk about what scientists have discovered about how plants get their food.	3
12. Bean books with photographs	Looking at stages of bean growth and explaining how the plant is getting its food at each stage of growth.	1, 3

APPLY Activities to practice using and coming to new concepts in relationship to students’ preconceptions

Activity (Task)	Description	Objectives
13. Visit from a plant with a problem	Visiting plant challenges us to use idea of photosynthesis to tell her how to get her food now that she has run out of the food stored in the cotyledon.	1, 2, 3, 5
14. Sand plant models	Investigating cells and chlorophyll and where food is made in the plant; how food travels in a plant to all cells	3, 5
15. Testing plant parts for starch	Investigating plant parts to see if they have starch; tracing where that starch came from -- how it was produced in the leaves and stored in various parts of the plant	1, 2, 3, 4, 10
16. Visit from a plant with a problem	Visiting plant challenges us to use idea of photosynthesis to tell her what those strawberries are that have started to grow on her and where they came from.	1, 2, 3, 5, 10
17. Creating Models	Students create skits and/or word pictures to put their ideas together to explain how plants get their food.	3, 6, 7
18. Snickers Science .	Students analyze ingredients in a snickers bar and consider the question: If all the plants in the world died, could we still live? Where does the food in Snickers bars come from?	3, 10
19. Application Problems	Six different problems are presented which can used in a variety of ways to provide more practice for students to apply the ideas they have been constructing during the unit. They also provide further opportunities for the teacher and to assess their understanding and provide feedback. Peer feedback can also be used.	Various
Student Designed Experiments	(No information available)	Various

REFLECT AND CONNECT ACTIVITIES to monitor own learning, to raise questions and new explorations, to assess conceptual change

Activity (Task)	Description	Objectives
Ongoing Reflect and Connect Activities	Each lesson throughout the unit should include Reflect and Connect opportunities. The FAR lesson plan format (Frame, Activity, Reflect) emphasizes this continual assessment of student thinking by both the teacher and the students.
20. Revisiting Your Initial Ideas	Look back at ideas at beginning of unit and consider how those ideas have changed and why.	1, 2, 3, 4, 5
21. Writing stories about the time I really felt like a scientist in this unit	Students write a story about a time I felt like a scientist during this unit.	Will vary