Goals & Objectives
Common household and personal cleaning products are a norm in today's advanced society. When one considers the historical development in the Western world of cleanliness as it relates to diseases, especially the outbreak of the H1N1 virus (swine flu), one can see that a widespread social awareness of hygienic practices and protocols has developed. Middle school students especially became more self-conscious when they were coughing, or greeting each other. Aerosol disinfectant sprays, hand sanitizers and anti-bacterial hand soaps suddenly became must-have items for everyone.
I teach Physical Science at Chapel Hill Middle School in DeKalb County, Georgia. The annual enrollment for 2010-2011 school year was 1,080 students, with 858 economically disadvantaged, 110 were students with disabilities, and 934 were on the free and reduced lunch program. The school has a population of 98% African-American, 1% Hispanic, and 1% multiracial. My target audience will be 8 th grade students in the gifted and high achiever program. 1 However, this unit can be modified for any learning modalities.
In this curriculum unit, I plan to combine students' self and social awareness with science relevancy. We will first compare and contrast detergents and soaps in the forms of research and in observing their properties. Then we will investigate the chemical components of soaps and detergents, to see how effective these chemical components will be to move and get rid of dirt. Then we will compare and contrast the differences between environmentally friendly and conventionally produced soaps and detergents. According to Marzano et al., there are nine categories of strategies that have a strong effect on student achievement. Those strategies are: identifying similarities and differences, summarizing and note taking, reinforcing effort and providing recognition, homework and practice, nonlinguistic representations, cooperative learning, setting objectives and providing feedback, generating and testing hypothesis, questions, cues, and advance organizers. 2 This research will encompass these strategies as well as encourage the students to become more personally aware of hygienic practices as well as socially aware of products harmful to the environment. Their cumulative project will be to create their own eco-friendly soaps, shampoos and other personal care products, with an emphasis on global consciousness as well as maintaining good personal hygiene.
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