Teaching Strategies:
Using the 5E Instructional Model:
TI looked it up on the internet and found some teaching strategies I can use as teaching strategies. I like my sixth-grade students to grasp ecological succession; I can combine student-centered, hands-on, and real-world approaches that make the concept tangible and memorable. I especially like to use the 5E instructional model. The 5E instructional model is to engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluate effective ways to teach succession lessons.
Engage In Prior Knowledge and Sparking Student Learning:
This is where I am just going to see what students know. What is their prior knowledge about the topic of ecosystem succession? This is where I spark their interest in ecosystem succession. This is where I will give them the passage about my son Tyrone’s experience with nature walk, he took with my aunt and his cousins. Engage by starting with a real-world example such as the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens and show before and after images or possibly a video to spark my students' interest at the start of the unit.
Students Explore:
Students will explore this section. They will work with materials, run and observe simple investigations, collect observations, and test predictions. Students will make predictions and hypothesize about succession. Students will practice core science skills by observing closely, forming hypotheses, communication their finding among their peers. The concrete experience they build here becomes the raw material for the next phase. I will refrain from giving the answer as a teacher. As the lessons progress, I would like to set up a lab station where students can explore by placing cards in the correct order of succession stages, watching a video on forestry recovery, or research primary vs. secondary succession.
Teacher Explains and Gives Examples and student will:
I will show examples of what I need students to know about geosystem or ecological succession. I will provide formal vocabulary terms, definitions, and scientific models. Students need to share their own explanation first. I will explain the proper science terms and connect it to what they have just observed, and this is where I will clear up any miss conceptions. Students will be required to take notes and draw diagrams of their observations. Students will need to explain their understanding using an interactive PowerPoint presentation or digital notebook template to clarify terms like pioneer species, climax community, and the role of abiotic factors.
Student will Elaborate:
Students will get the opportunity to elaborate by being challenged to transfer what they learned to new situations. I will give them a different ecosystem with different problems that require the same concept, connect the idea to another ecosystem. This will deepen their understanding and prevent them from losing the knowledge they have learned which keeps the content knowledge they have learned locked into their learning. I will assign a stem challenge to elaborate asking students to create a succession flipbook predicting future changes in a forest or garden over 100 years.
Evaluate:
I will evaluate students throughout the unit, it isn’t just a test at the end. I will assess students throughout the entire cycle as they observe students working, listen to their reasoning, and look for shifts in their thinking. Formal evaluation at this stage confirms whether students can apply concepts independently. I would like to include assessments like CER (Claim, Evidence, Reasoning) questions, or a project presentation.
Hands On Activities:
Ecosystem in a bag to build a small-scale ecosystem with soil, water, and small organism; observe changes over days to model succession finding information. Another hands-on activity I will incorporate is biotic vs. Abiotic students will sort cards into biotic/abiotic categories to reinforce vocabulary before discussing succession. Last, I want to set up an inquiry lab to have students investigate succession using readings, videos, and reflection questions to differentiate between primary and secondary succession.
Real World Connections:
I will find and use local examples of a recovering desert or forest after a wildfire or a garden recovering from weeds. We will look for link to current events or environmental news to show relevance. I would also take students on a field trip to a park or nature reserve to observe succession in action.
Collaborative Learning:
I will create group work on succession projects encouraging communication and peer teaching and think pair share discussions would help clarify misconceptions early in the lessons. We will use interactive websites or stimulation to visualize succession and incorporate videos and digital tools to make abstract concepts more concrete. I plan to always connect the lesson back to the big idea that ecosystems change over time, and each stage prepares the way for the next. This will help students see why behind the process, not just memorize the steps.
The students will begin asking wh- questions such as what, where, when, why, and how, which are at a basic level of questioning. With guidance, students will advance to critical-thinking questions, such as analysis, evaluation, and creativity. In this unit I want students to take notes of the class discussion and learn the key vocabulary terms such as biotic, abiotic, succession, climax community, Ecological succession, Primary succession, pioneer species and many more
I also want to have students get into groups of three or four and have them research different ecosystem successions and create a board of what they have learned.
Students need to learn vocabulary terms are embedded within the curriculum unit; biotic and abiotic are examples. My students need to know that ecosystems are connected to one another in one way or another, and that if one goes extinct, it affects all the other ecosystems. When extinction happens, organisms have to redefine themselves and find a different way to survive, or die off, and consider how this will affect the food web and the flow of energy.
My research will include stories from tribes that have respect and care for Mother Earth. Stories like The Earth on Turtle’s Back, the Onondaga creation story from the Northeast Woodlands, The Dine Story of Creation and Southwest Navajo Story, and The White Buffalo Calf Woman and the Sacred Pipe by Lakota Sioux- Great Plains. These stories tie into the creation of life on Earth and how we commune with the animals, plants, and Mother Nature. We must first respect her, keep her clean, and take care of her.
Students need to develop models and construct arguments to deepen their understanding of resources, the cycling of matter, and the flow of energy in ecosystems during succession. They can also study the patterns of interactions among organisms within an ecosystem in a succession. They will compare and contrast ecosystem successions in primary and secondary successions, and the effects these factors have on communities. I know students will see the difference in where they live to compare their learning, which becomes an enduring understanding.
As indigenous peoples, we take care of Mother Earth because we know how important Earth’s resources are. I will be using the Navajo Standard for this section and culture stories to support native students’ culture, history, and language. The Dine Story of Creation and Southwest Navajo Story, The Earth on Turtle’s Back, an Onondaga creation story from the Northeast Woodland, and The White Buffalo Calf Woman and the Sacred Pipe, a Lakota Sioux-Great Plains Story.
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