Rationale
The Franklin-McKinley School District in partnership with East Side Union High School District, Evergreen Valley College, and San Jose State University opened College Connection Academy (CCA), a Partnership School, grades 7 – 12/13 in the fall of 2008. CCA has the same autonomy and freedom to deal with curriculum, teaching and learning to meet individual students' needs. The four partners have combined and integrated their resources to make the Academy successful. CCA is located on Yerba Buena High School Campus, which allows students to take high school elective classes while in eighth grade. CCA students can earn up to one year’s worth of college credits by the time they graduate from Yerba Buena High School.
The population of students is made up of 210 students for the academic year 2018-2019, of which 97 are seventh-grade students, and 113 are eighth-grade students. About 40% of the students are considered socioeconomically disadvantaged. The student demographics are the following: Black or African American 1%, Asian 62.9%, Filipino 3.8%, Hispanic or Latino 30.5%, White 1%, Two or more races 1%, English Learner’s 9.5%, and Students with Disabilities 0.5%. This unit is developed for approximately 100 seventh grade general education students. All the students attending CCA are required to participate in the School District Science Fair. Prior to attending CCA, most of the students did not participate in any Science Fairs and did not have the opportunity to work with electronic components or engage in solving an Environmental Problem using Engineering. This unit is designed to align with the Next Generation Science Standards, which have been adopted by the state of California for use in Science education.
The beginning of this unit is designed to build background knowledge on the importance of conserving freshwater. The students targeted in this unit have limited knowledge of Earth’s water and it’s physical location, which includes above the earth in the air and clouds, on the surface of the earth, and inside the earth as groundwater.2 Humans need food for survival, and in order to produce food, water is a necessity. Water shortages can lead to higher food prices. This unit is geared towards creating a hands-on learning experience for most of my students, who will be engaging in building a device for the first time with teammates.
The availability of water-saving gadgets is definitely creating awareness in people on ways they could save water. The ECO shower drop is a device that measures the amount of water, your shower uses and lets you know when it is time for you to get out.3 The meter is designed to tell exactly how much water was used. A bathwater diverter is a fast and budget-friendly kit that is fitted to the outer waste pipe of your house. It diverts bathwater straight out of the house where it can be reused to water plants and grass. This water can be reused to water plants and grass. A part-sink part-toilet is useful to reduce water consumption. After flushing, fresh cold water is directed through the faucet for handwashing and that water drains into the tank to be used for the next flush. The toilet sink is highly efficient and uses just 1.28 liters per use. Aerators are small and quiet devices that save water by mixing air into the stream of the faucet. It has three settings, 0.5, 1.0, and 1.5 gallons per minute for washing, soaping, and rinsing.
Attending Science professional development workshops and engaging in activities with other teachers, allowed me to learn from my peers how a given problem can be solved in more than one way. This practice inspired me to create a similar experience for my students. A discussion on the characteristics of good team members will help students to learn the benefits of working as a team.4 Students will work in teams, where there will be a heterogeneous mix of students with varied learning abilities, and each team having a maximum of four students. The soil moisture sensor is a device that will help solve the problem of not overwatering the soil on a farm or in gardens, while the soil is already moist.
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