End of Year Project and Recycling
by Colleen Guzman
So another year has come and almost gone (whew). This is my fifth year teaching, and possibly my toughest. It is my third year in a large public school after spending two years in a charter school. I hate to admit it but I am still adjusting to how different everything is from charter school to public school, but I am trucking along. To be clear I am not saying that one type of school is better than the other they are just very different, especially in size. One of the things that is very similar about them are the TEKS (Texas Standards). So after 5 years and no changes in the standards I have them down forward and backward.
One of the things I have noticed is that after five years I am still doing some of the same activities, although hopefully I am fixing these activities a little each year that I teach them. In a large school many of your activities are written by a curriculum writer, however you are allowed to personalize them so they work for you. At this time of year I personally like to have the students create an end of year project. This is not something that is called for in our curriculum but is something I feel is extremely important because it gives the students one final chance to think about the things they were supposed to have learned in seventh grade science. Also, in the state of Texas our 8th grade students have to take a state science test that has questions about concepts they learned in 6th, 7th and 8th grade so the end of year project is one way for the students to see the information and refresh it in their memories before they test the following year.
For the end of year project I normally ask the students to create something non-electronic. One of the reasons I do this is because we have textbooks that are considered consumables. A consumable textbook is a heavy paper cover textbook with pages that are easy to tear out so the students can take portions home and work on those parts of the textbook, then at the end of the year we send them home with the students and normally they throw them away. In order to give the students one last chance to look through the textbook and practice using the index and the glossary I have them create a project using pictures and words from the textbook. The students are also allowed to use their science notebooks. I also like to have the students create a non-electronic project because I have read some articles about projects and muscle memory so I have them use muscles to cut, glue and write.
I begin the project by letting the students know what is expected. The students have to provide 2-3 pictures for each topic and they have to write 3-5 sentences about the topic. I have some topics together as a group because they lend themselves to one another such as cells and organelles. The students always ask me if they have to have the pictures and sentences for everything and I always tell them yes. I try to get them to work on the high end first and then if they struggle I let them come down a step or two from there but I never start anyone at a lower expectation whether they are Pre-AP, regular education or special education. I feel it is always easier to have them step down a little as needed rather than try to bring them higher once they think they have finished.
I write the expectations and the science topics on the board and I also provide the students with a typed page showing these parameters. I normally give them five class days to complete the project so everyone has plenty of time to get everything completed. I am there to help them, I know who needs extra chances to learn how to use the index, or who needs me to guide them a little bit towards the right pages, or who needs help organizing their project so they are not overwhelmed. I also created a project myself so some of my students are able to use it and follow along. I use this for some of my students who are emergent English language learners, for some of them that lack confidence as a starting point, or for some of my students who are special needs. I enjoyed this project this year, I got some really great projects and some students put in a lot of effort. I am already thinking of ways to tweak it for next year,so stay tuned.
Here are some of the projects students were working on:
