Three-Dimensional Learning
Phenomena Storylines
The following lessons are easily nestled into a storyline as an episode. Keep in mind that phenomena-based lessons include storylines which emerge based upon student questions. Learn more at nextgenstorylines.org.
Elementary
Kindergarten: A life cycle is the series of stages an organism passes through during its lifetime. Specifically, this activity has each student create a model of the pumpkin life cycle.
2nd Grade: This activity has each group create a small “farm” where they can see different seeds germinate. The “farm” is a clear plastic glove with a cotton ball in each of the fingers. A seed is placed on the moist cotton ball. To conduct the investigation, each group will hang one “farm” in the window and their second glove in a dark room or drawer. The students will monitor the gloves and record observations in a science journal.
5th Grade: This hands-on activity will model the limited amount of fresh water on earth and identify how best management practices can reduce water consumption and help students understand that topsoil is a limited resource by slicing up Play-Doh to demonstrate the distribution of Earth’s soil resources.
Gather, Reason, Communicate Framework
The Gather, Reason, Communicate (GRC) Framework is a student-centered instructional approach that provides a structure to engage students in making sense of a phenomenon through the science and engineering practices.
Elementary
Kindergarten: Make observations to determine the effect of sunlight on Earth’s surface.
Phenomenon: Cattle in a pasture stand under a tree on a hot, sunny day.
5th Grade: Use models to describe that energy in animals’ food (used for body repair, growth, and motion and to maintain body warmth) was once energy from the sun.
Phenomenon: Cattle are one of the few animals that can survive by eating grass.
5th Grade: Develop a model to describe the movement of matter among plants, animals, decomposers, and the environment.
Phenomenon: Some cattle live in feedlots and some live in pastures.
Middle School
Light Waves: Develop a model to describe that waves are reflected and use mathematical representations to describe a simple model for waves.
Phenomenon: Cows are gathered together under the square structure on a June afternoon in a rural Nebraska feedlot.
Earth and Human Activity: Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and increasing positive human impact on the environment.
Phenomenon: Feedlots can support 50 steers on one acre, but pasture can only support one steer per acre.
High School
Biology: Construct an explanation based on evidence that the process of evolution primarily results from four factors and apply concepts of statistics and probability to support explanations that organisms with an advantageous heritable trait tend to increase in proportion to organisms lacking this trait.
Phenomenon: There are more native grasses in fields using rotational grazing practices that in fields with traditional grazing.
Problem-Based Science Lessons
The Problem-Based Learning series will engage your students in scenarios that represent real-world science in all its messy, thought provoking glory. The scenarios prompt students to work together on analyzing problems, asking questions, posing hypotheses, and constructing solutions.
Elementary
A Pig’s Tale
Using problem-based learning, this curriculum allows students to work in teams, think critically and analyze, and centers on student learning to answer the question, “how does a farmer help a pig grow from two pounds to two-hundred seventy pounds in six months?” Present the problem first and take a short time or a whole semester to answer the question. You can even take a Virtual Field Trip to a Nebraska Pig Farm!
Grade: 3rd
Lesson One: Providing for Pigs
This lesson introduces students to the care pig farmers provide for pigs, teaches that pigs need air, space, food, water, and shelter to survive, and introduces students to the life cycle of a pig.
Lesson Two: Picking Pigs
Students will communicate the evidence of the inheritance and variation of traits by developing a model to build their own pig.
Lesson Three: Polishing Pigs
Students will analyze the nutritional needs of animals by creating a model of a balanced diet for a pig to explore the organization of the monogastric digestive system.
Lesson Four: Protecting Pigs
Students will build a pig barn and discover farmers raise pigs in barns to protect them from disease, predators, and weather.
Vocabulary Strategies
Consider using these models to encourage learning vocabulary for each lesson.
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High School
A Pig’s Tale
Using problem-based learning, this curriculum allows students to work in teams, think critically, and centers on student learning to answer the question, “how does a farmer help a pig grow from two pounds to two-hundred seventy pounds in six months?” Present the problem first and take a short time or a whole semester to answer the question. You can even take a Virtual Field Trip to a Nebraska Pig Farm!
Lesson One: Pig and Pork
Students will analyze pork production and products by diagramming cuts of meat and discussing how those cuts affect customers.
Lesson Two: Pig Escape
Students will participate in an Escape Box scenario to learn how grouping piglets and raising them in farrowing barns enhances their chance to survive and reproduce.
H.S. Escape Room Google Form
*This Google form allows students to complete the escape room clues. It only allows students to move on if they get the correct answer. Have students “screenshot” their final page to show you they have completed the quiz.
Lesson Three: Digesting DNA
Students develop a model to explain how enzymes affect the digestive system of a pig as they grow through transitional stage of milk to solid food.
Lesson Four: Inheritance and Traits
Students will communicate the evidence of the inheritance and variation of traits by developing a model to build their own pig.
Lesson Five: Balanced Eating
Students will analyze the nutritional needs of animals by creating a model of a balanced diet for a pig to explore the organization of their monogastric digestive system.
This resource is supported by the
