Scenario and Chapter Challenge
Read (or have a student read) the Chapter Challenge aloud to the class. Allow
students to discuss what they have been asked to do. Have students meet in teams
to begin brainstorming what they would like to include in their Chapter Challenge reports. Request a brief summary in their own words of what they have been asked to do, and a description of attributes of a high-quality report. Alternatively, lead a class discussion about the challenge and the expectations. Review the titles of the activities in the Table of Contents. Ask students to explain how the title of each activity in the chapter relates to the expectations for the Chapter Challenge. The goal of doing this is for students to realize that the content of the activities corresponds to the content expected for the Chapter Report.
Guiding questions for discussion include:
• What do the activities have to do with the expectations of the challenge?
• What have you been asked to do?
• What should a good final report contain?
Assessment Criteria
A sample rubric for assessing the Chapter Challenge is shown on the following page. You can copy and distribute the rubric as is, or use it as a baseline for developing scoring guidelines and expectations that suit your needs. For example, you might wish to ensure that core concepts and abilities derived from your local or state science frameworks also appear on the rubric. You might also wish to modify the format of the rubric to make it more consistent with your evaluation system. However you decide to evaluate the Chapter Challenge, keep in mind that all expectations should be communicated to students and the expectations should be outlined at the start of their work. Please review Assessment Criteria (pages xxiv to xxv of this Teacher’s Edition) for a more detailed explanation of the assessment system developed for the EarthComm program. |