Woodside
Project Wildflowers
The participants in this project are a team of four teachers and 116
seventh grade students. Three teachers are each responsible for one of the
core subjects (social studies, language arts, and science). Math students
are shared between two seventh grade teams for scheduling ease.
Twenty-four students are identified as academically gifted while the rest
of the team is heterogeneously mixed. Supporting this group, but not
considered participants, are Mike Gorman, the technology resource person
for our building, Eileen Frazer, a technology teacher for our Integrated
Solutions Block, and Mike Daily, our German teacher who has agreed to
train teachers and students in the use of digital cameras and basic
close-up photography.
The primary goal of this project is to use technology in support of
student inquiry based learning, research, and writing across the
curriculum as mandated by our district and supported by our staff. Our
students have a wealth of hardware equipment and software programs,
appropriate opportunities for Internet access, and numerous ancillary
technologies that will enable them to study the spring wildflowers of our
school district’s Environmental Center. Some of these technologies include
graphing calculators, a global positioning receiver, and digital image
processing.
We plan to utilize our Integrated Solutions Block (ISB) time
(approximately seven and one-half hours every two weeks), as well as class
time in social studies, language arts, and science. Students will learn
about expository writing, poetry, myths, mapping, plant classification,
northeastern Indiana wildflower diversity, and wildflower populations.
The project will culminate in a product that features a
student-developed web site, which contains a field guide presentation of
our Environmental Center’s wildflower species. It will include a plant
population census report with spreadsheet data, a map of plant populations
and trails, samples of expository writing, data on invasive plants, such
as Garlic Mustard, and reports on our own service project to repopulate
one species of wildflower, Trillium grandiflorum. Reports on folklore
stories and myths, as well as past and current medicinal uses, surrounding
many of our native wildflower species will make up the expository writing.
The web site will also house student examples of haikus based on a spring
or wildflower theme and a resource page with links to related sites and/or
topics.
