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Wonder Park Project Based Learning

In the Wonder Park PBL, students will construct their own amusement park ride/attractions. To go along with the movie Wonder Park, students are introduced to June. June is the little girl that imagines this wonderful amusement park in a daydream. June’s imagination runs wild as she works with her lovable park characters to put the wonder back into her amusement park before it’s too late. Students will be learning about force, motion and energy as well as the effects of these laws when it comes to a person’s health. For instance, how might a roller coaster affect a person with heart conditions, pregnancy or epilepsy?

I found this PBL through ymiclassroom.com. My school’s STEM program is planning a trip to Carowinds for an Engineering Day in April 2019. I thought this would be a great way for our students to learn about mechanics and the science behind amusement parks prior to our trip. We are also trying to convert to a PBL style of teaching in our program. We feel this would better engage our students and also allow our teachers to use some of the skills they have acquired through PD and self teaching. 

Link to PBL:

http://ymiclassroom.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/wonderpark_kit.pdf

Students will be able to access demonstration videos via YouTube to help construct their slides and catapults during the activities in the lesson. Each student was issued a Chromebook at the start of the school year. they have access to technology at school and at home.

Questions to guide students:

1.How can you organize your team of students to produce a functional unit?

2. What problems might your team encounter, and how will you solve them?

3. Based on the performance of your teammates, are you going to be successful in creating a functional unit?

4. What can you and your teammates do to work together and stay on task?

5. How can I help my teammates understand something they may be struggling with?

Assessments will be done via Kahoot:   https://create.kahoot.it/share/newton-s-laws/2bf35e85-a585-4dff-948a-7211676bd5d7 

and Activity Rubric. (See Student-Centered Learning tab on HSE webpage)

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Graphic/Visual organizers:

For the Graphic/visual organizers I myself like to use Easel.ly. I have created infographics for students to use for lesson plans and class feedback. I have also had students join through a free account and create their own graphic organizers for vocabulary and various other content. I also have supplied many premade visuals for students to organize content such as bones, body systems and terminology for body regions/planes. I usually upload the graphic organizers into my Google Classroom for the students to use during their lesson from Nearpod or deck.toys lessons. They are able to click back and forth between screens and all their materials end up in one accessible place, on their Chromebook and not on my floor or in the trash. They simply make a copy and then they are able to edit the organizer to their liking for organizing their learned content. I have included these visuals on my webpage.

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Multimedia tools for student-centered learning:

https://nearpod.com

Slideshow style, interactive, student-centered learning with built in assessments to evaluate student’s understanding on delivered content. Videos, pictures and other digital content can be embedded.

https://deck.toys

Student-paced exploration through gamification to help students learn or practice mastery of key concepts. Videos, pictures and other digital content can be embedded.

Both of these tools are student-centered. The teacher creates the lesson online and provides the code for the student to explore the content at their own pace. On Nearpod, assessments can be built in throughout the lesson. A report can be generated after students have completed all activities included. With deck.toys, the student experiences a video game like atmosphere where they have to answer questions correctly to move to the next place. There may be an additional “lock” or “code” they have to open before they can advance. They earn points as they move around a map.

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Webpage-HSE

https://sites.google.com/scsnc.org/cms-health-science-education/home

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In creating this website, I chose to use the new version of Google Sites. I played around with the classic version but it seemed kind of complicated so I went back to the new version. The new version was extremely easy. The only issue I had was figuring out how to embed other sites like Quizlet.com, that I use for medical terminology, and a 3D anatomy site I found called AnatomyLearning.com, which is a free web-based 3D interactive tool for learning about the body systems and parts. This digital tool was so easy to use that I actually created 2 webpages: one for my Health Science class (and this class) and one for my HOSA club. I also like the fact that this automatically shows up on my Google Drive. All my files end up in one location and that is a time saver. One downside I encountered by using the new version of Google Sites was that I could not use the Announcements template that was available for the Classic version. This template allowed for comments or conversation to occur through the webpage. I did, however, find a way around this dilemma. I simply used an infographic that I had already created on Easel.ly for feedback from my admin team after my observations and walk-throughs. Students, parents and other visitors are able to scan the QR code for access to a Google Form that I built to receive feedback. I also included another infographic that when scanned will show my current lesson plans. We are required in my district to have these posted outside our classrooms so I just made mine pretty. When embedding these infographics and other websites, Google Sites also gave me the option of whether to embed a link or the actual page. It’s rather intuitive so I figure that Google has received feedback about what features people would like to have in their products. They have made it incredibly easy to build a webpage. My husband has a degree in web design and development. He says this is exactly why some people with a web design degree are no longer employed in the field.

Resources:

https://www.educatorstechnology.com/2014/04/10-ways-to-use-google-sites-with-your.html

https://support.google.com/sites/answer/7176163?hl=en