Final Unit (PDF)

Implementing Common Core Standards (PDF)

Synopsis

The topic of global warming is becoming more and more contentious and politically charged. Bloggers have taken the discussion of the science out of the scientific arena and put it online where it has become difficult to distinguish between reasonable questioning of the data and sites where the data is cherry-picked to support a particular political point of view.

Students will learn how to evaluate online resources as they research the topic of global warming. They will then use this new ability to research their position in a role-play activity in which students represent various sides in the debate in North Carolina on how to deal with the predictions about sea level rise due to global warming. This unit is appropriate for students in grades 11-12 in AP or IB Biology or AP Environmental Science courses, and addresses Common Core Reading Standards in Science 6 and 8 and Writing Standards 1 and 8.

Final Unit (PDF)

Implementing Common Core Standards (PDF)

Synopsis

The signs of the effects of global warming are all around us, but are we really paying attention? Think about a week of weather when you wore short sleeves and no jacket one day and a winter coat, hat, and gloves on the next. Is this caused by global warming? Why does there seem to be more natural disasters, such as floods? Why does it seem the prices of necessities for living are increasing? The answers to these questions and more will be addressed in this curriculum unit. Before the issues can be addressed and possible solutions provided or suggested, the cause that leads to these issues must be identified. This unit will teach the concepts of global warming, climate change, and human impact. My goal is to guide students in being aware of their impact on our planet and our contribution to climate change. The end result of this unit is for students to raise awareness to others and provide possible solutions for reducing the factors that affect climate change.

Mike will lead the North Carolina team in the national MATHCOUNTS competition in May in Washington, D.C.

Congratulations, Mike.  Good luck in D.C.

Click here for a link to a story in the Charlotte Observer. 

In 2011 Joanne led the CTI seminar titled, “Exploring Big Questions.”  Fellows approached a variety of topics through the lens of philosophical inquiry addressing questions such as “What makes something true?”, “Are numbers and people real in the same way?”, and “Would it be good to live forever?”

Congratulations, Joanne!  CTI is very proud of your accomplishments!

Click here for link to press release.

 Final Unit (PDF)

Implementing Common Core Standards

Final Unit (PDF)

Implementing Common Core Standards (PDF)

200 Word Synopsis

My unit theme is Physics Fun with Cars, which I wrote to appeal to my male students.    Students will complete hands on activities that are all centered around the idea of cars and racing.  The activities and experiments are centered around the Common Core Essential Standards.  To align with Common Core, I recommend this unit be taught to fifth grade Science students.  The unit includes a large amount of technology usage including websites, videos, and student created video content.  Each activity will help students gain an understanding of Newton’s Laws of Force and Motion, and the Universal Law of Gravitation.  Students will use Hot Wheels cars to discover how and why things work the way they do in real life.

Final Unit (PDF)

Implementing Common Core Standards (PDF)

Synopsis

Reading Media Imagery to Language Learning Incorporating Digital Media Production with the Common Core is a journey by an ESL Teacher turned Technology Facilitator’s vision and pathway to integrating technology through presentational video digital production with the aims and direction of the National Common Core Standards theme directive of production based education.  This unit reflects upon the English Language Learner’s particular circumstance in the US public education system and seeks to invigorate teachers to engage ELL students by providing authentic project based learning with concrete data points in the language acquisition proficiency and academic learning by students utilization of technology and creation of concrete digital work products.  Activities and strategies presented in this unit are part classroom based and school wide based with the intention of partially utilizing Closed Circuit systems along with Web 2.0 technologies as a mode of delivery of instruction and capturing student engagement. This unit is intended to be implemented in collaboration and cooperation with classroom teachers throughout the school.

Final Unit (PDF)

Implementing Common Core Standards (PDF)

200 Word Synopsis

This curriculum unit is designed to introduce students to the reality of “perspective” in virtually all text, linear or visual, that they will encounter in a lifetime. With the exception of facts or statistics, students need to consider the perspective with which any information is presented. By utilizing several different and diverse texts I believe that this unit will empower students to more closely analyze what they read and view. I am placing a greater emphasis upon the visual medium due to the fact that our chance for Global Unity depended on the ability of individual and nation to cross many barriers-the most important, communication. A worn out cliché, but still so very succinct, is the observation that “a picture paints a thousand words”. The data utilized in my research, readings and instruction from Dr. Daniel Grano’s presentation of the 2012 C.T.I. seminar, Reading Media Imagery: Critical Thinking and Literacy had a profound effect upon my decision to pursue the focus upon perspective. I firmly believe that we live in an era where the media is “spoon feeding” views and opinions as opposed to presenting objective facts and allowing the recipient to make their own decision/choice/determination!

Final Unit (PDF)

Implementing Common Core Standards (PDF)

200 Word Synopsis

My unit is intended to be a literary overview of the Civil Rights Movement. The teacher will share children’s literature with students with the hopes that they will pick a novel for their group Literature Circle. Students will learn about how young people were extremely influential in making and helping adults see that a change was essential in order for everyone to obtain equal rights. Students will also learn how people stood up and fought for rights that impacted all people of color not fought for frivolous desires. Students will be exposed to letters, songs, novels and poems through different aspects of the Civil Rights Movement.

Final Unit (PDF)

Implementing Common Core Standards (PDF)

200 Word Synopsis

“Let’s Take Care of Our Earth” is a curriculum unit that integrates the subjects of reading, writing, science, and social studies while also promoting 21^st Century Learning Skills. It is immediately intended to be used in a second grade classroom, but can easily be applied to other elementary levels. Students will work independently, in small groups, and as a whole class throughout various learning activities and experiences.

Students will identify and take ownership for how they are going to positively impact the environment by reducing, reusing, and recycling. They will apply what they know and learn in order to influence others. They will write persuasive arguments for how to take care of the Earth and the environment in order to motivate their peers and families to care about the Earth. They will create visual representations of their plan to hang around our school campus to inform and students in other grade levels. Students will investigate and problem-solve how to prevent erosion on our school campus. They will create and test a hypothesis as well as evaluate their choices and form a new hypothesis. And, they will take responsibility for caring for plant life.

Final Unit (PDF)

Implementing Common Core Standards (PDF)

200 Word Synopsis

This unit is constructed around the analysis of nonfiction environmental texts. Students will identify the author’s purpose and how the author’s choices of rhetorical strategies and stylistic devices contribute to the construction of that claim. As part of this analysis, students will consider the rhetorical triangle of subject, audience and speaker. Students will also focus on logical appeals, ethical appeals and emotional appeals; they will consider syntax, diction and other relevant stylistic and argumentative devices.  By juxtaposing their analysis of Environmental Science texts with more traditional argumentative texts, such as political speeches and personal essays, students will recognize that all writers, regardless of content area, have a purpose and an audience and, ultimately, an argument.  Students will be able to effectively analyze the structure of an argument and explain the connection between strategies used by different authors in the fields of science, literature and politics. Improving these analytical skills will help students become stronger writers as they incorporate those same strategies in their own writing.

Final Unit (PDF)

Implementing Common Core Standards (PDF)

200 Word Synopsis

My students know themselves as consumers in a world of excess. This is an important step in introducing a unit of study that will require them to think critically about our world and effects of the production, consumption, and waste that they are a part of.  Under the broader theme of art as social commentary, this unit will attempt to explore some of the following key questions:  Do artists have a role in reflecting and commenting on the society in which they live?  Should artists provoke divergent points of view about such political, moral or other social issues? What are the pressing issues that our community/school/ nations/ world are currently confronting? What tools might an artist use to best depict one of these current issues in order to promote a constructive discussion?

To be strong critical thinkers, it is important for my students to be well rounded, inclusive, and reflective in their view of themselves and the world they inhabit. The work in this unit will ask my student to look at scientific data, literature, and a video lectures series to understand the links between consumer culture and environmental problems. We will trace cause and effect chains as we explore personal consumption, models for change (locally and nationally), and global action that has attempted to address industry standards. At the end of this unit we will read and talk about idea for simple living and sustainable consumption. I will introduce a final concept called our ‘cultural footprint’.

Final Unit (PDF)

Implementing Common Core Standards (PDF)

200 Word Synopsis

This unit focuses on global climate change and its impacts specifically to North Carolina and the Charlotte region. The unit is divided into three areas:  climate change, impacts of climate change, and mitigation and adaptation.  Students will be divided into groups to answer a problem related to climate change in the North Carolina/Charlotte region.  Each task will have a different way to present the students knowledge such as a book, poster/mural, plays, public service announcements, and models.  The following scenario is an example of problems presented in the unit:  You are a member of Charlotte’s city council.  As a member of city government you are responsible for city planning (how the land is used, roads, and public transportation).  A proposal has been placed before you to approve increasing funding for public transportation.  It would improve sidewalks and bike lanes, city buses, and the light rail.  Taking the environment and economics into consideration, would you approve this funding?  Create a proposal explaining your reasoning.

Final Unit (PDF)

Implementing Common Core Standards (PDF)

200 Word Synopsis

How can one person change the world?  Through the study of climate change, students will mathematically focus on this global issue.  With the integration of technology, they will work collaboratively to develop a sense of this global problem and determine possible changes that can contribute towards a solution.  Students will focus on data analysis to chart global temperatures and determine long term trends, examine carbon dioxide emissions per capita, develop personal carbon footprints, and calculate effects of their changes.  Through examination of variables and calculations, students will present a policy/solution that would make the largest impact.  This unit can be utilized as a problem based learning project (PBL) where students will work in small groups.  Depending on the use of class time, this unit should take approximately 1-2 weeks to complete.

Final Unit (PDF)

Implementing Common Core Standards (PDF)

200 Word Synopsis

I intend to incorporate this curriculum unit into my Anatomy and Physiology course which studies the regional and systematic structures and functions of the human body.  Emphasis is placed on histology (the study of tissues) and the major systems of the body.  This seminar was very relevant to the curriculum as I aim to make my students more cognizant of their influence on the environment and, in turn, the environment’s negative impact on their bodies.  Students will become informed the products that have made our lives comfortable in the 21^st Century are actually highly toxic chemical pollutants that dump themselves in our tissues and make their own selves comfortable.  Students will research an array of chemicals (such as DDT, Ozone, Lead, Mercury, BPA, etc.) that we are exposed to on a daily basis without awareness (their history, sources, uses, effects on the human body, etc.) and present their findings to the class.  They will investigate the effects of smoking and other toxins on the human body, calculate toxicity levels and ratings, and design advertisements to promote healthier lifestyles.  Excerpts from two very important books will be discussed: Rachel Carson’s 1962 Silent Spring and Sandra Steingraber’s modern day Raising Elijah.