Petroleum Exploration: Pasts to Profit From

Earth Science is by far my favorite! If I could get another degree, I would get my Geology degree. I love rocks and the Earth! It's fascinating. ANYWAY, for this project I worked with a Geologist from the petroleum field to design and give workshops during the project. I grouped kids into three. I chose someone, then they were able to choose someone, etc. This worked out great in some circumstances....but not all. Especially when friends chose friends. Before each student chose, I reminded them that choosing someone who will help them be motivated, stay on task, and be serious will help them achieve their goal. Most students, but not all listened to my word of advice. Here is the Driving Question and Project Requirements.

Driving Question:
How can we explore Earth's current landscape to identify the organisms and processes that create our past and present landscape?

project requirements:

create a 3D model of the Earth's surface and subsurface include ancient landforms such as deltas, canyons, and sand dunes in the subsurface of the model include 3 types of fossils within the model create 3 landforms such as deltas, canyons, and sand dunes on the surface of the model layer with different soil types and label age of each layer provide or create a petroleum and water reservoir in the subsurface of model create a topographical map of the subsurface and surface landforms- map must include a key and scale explore another group's model create a well log during exploration take a core sample of the model The kids created fossils out of clay. They learned about different kinds of fossils (molds, imprints, etc) and decided which kind they wanted to create. They had a lot of fun! One group thought to make an imprint of a spine with the metal wire of their spiral. Pretty neat!

The kids really enjoyed creating the landforms for their project. First they had to draw their topographical maps of where the landforms would be in the project, once approved after a desk crit, students were able to begin creating the landforms. We made them out of salt dough. It took much longer than anticipated for them to dry....BUT they LOVED getting their hands sticky and dirty making the landforms.

The geologist that helped me mastermind the project came to give the kids a workshop on the rock cycle. They filled in notes from the workshop on a graphic organizer (thinking map: flow map) that I designed on the computer. If you would like for me to share it with you, leave me a comment with your gmail! The geologist also said that she first fell in love with Geology in 5th grade. This made some of the kids perk up....maybe this 5th grade science teacher/class will inspire some of them to be scientists when they grow up!!!!!

During this project, I focused on the research questions the students were using and answering to endure understanding and mastery. I wrote the research questions for them to use, then they went and found the answers themselves. I provided one or two websites and videos to help confused students. I wrote each question on chart paper and had the kids "carousel" around, writing the answer that they found to each question on the paper. Here is a picture!




This was a great way for the students to see each other's answers and to make corrections to any incorrect research found. HOWEVER, I noticed that the students who didn't answer the specific question did not master it. So for the next project I did something new. (Will write about it in the next post about the next project.)

The kids final project turned out great. They were proud of their hard work and so was I! Unfortunately this project was the forever project (happened in December with Christmas programs, field trips, and parties galore!) so I had to cut it short. The kids were not able to explore other students' projects. But, now I know for next year that it needs to be altered.

After taking the assessment, about 75% of the kids proved mastery. I feel that sometimes poor test taking skills hinder the students. Through discussion, 95% of students were able to explain what they did for their project using correct vocabulary terms. Looks like I may need to give a workshop on test taking skills...