As 2019 begins, I am hoping to do more to make STEM more equitable for the English learners that I work with. As I continue using the PBL Process to get students to think like scientists with the Tomatosphere seed project, I have noticed that my students can collect data, interpret data, and communicate it well. They are really beginning to think like scientists. I believe that my students are now ready to begin to implement project based learning, in earnest. I have asked that they come up with several questions about what they wonder or want to know about tomato plants and plants in general. Some of the responses include: “Can tomato plants grow without water?”, “How long does it take for the seeds to turn into plants?”, and “What makes tomatoes change colors?”
I was really amazed by their genuine curiousity about the subject, the personal connections that they made, and the amount of background they already had about tomatoes and plants. I think that this will become a great launchpad for their research going forward. Students will be using Epic! non-fiction books, a symbaloo of web sites, and a Skype conversation with a botanist from NC State to research and answer their questions.
I feel that by allowing the students to research the questions that they have generated, this will motivate them to read more and thus will improve the quantity of their writing about a subject.
The emphasis of the lessons in this unit however, is not entirely on content-acquisition, although students are acquiring information about tomatoes and plants, their focus is on evidence-based writing and supporting their speaking with fact-based details. The students will practice communicating information that is supported with evidence from a source. To assess themselves and other students and to simultaneously create notes on information about content, students will be creating their own Kahoot! questions to use for game style review.
Although most of my students still need some support to be able to communicate using science discourse and vocabulary independently, a major advantage to this project is the fact that students are collecting and interpreting real data about an experiment that they are invested in. I have already seen a difference in the manner that they communicate. I hope that this continues as they begin to collect and visually differentiate the data from the different kinds of tomato seeds.
