Butterflies and Other Organisms: How they help our gardens grow Menands School: Kim Bellmore Erin Jankowski Nancy Sposito.

Butterflies and Other Organisms: How they help our gardens grow

Menands School:Kim Bellmore

Erin JankowskiNancy Sposito

How do butterflies and other organisms help our gardens grow?

What do butterflies and other organisms need to carry out their life cycle in our

garden?

The Essential Questions:

How it all began:

Evidence

Based

Practice

Butterfly 1st Timers

KWHL

“Wondering”

Research

The Blog:

www.teacherweb.com

Menands Butterflies Debut in India

The Senior Citizens

The Finished Product

Media Specialist’s Perspective

oOpportunity to work with a new teacher and a seasoned teacher

oGreat starting point to begin moving toward inquiry for all

oLearning opportunity to reflect on what works and what did not

oAble to help teachers and students be more comfortable using technology as an extension of the classroom rather than in isolation

oLoved seeing students APPLY their information seeking skills and strategies!

Teachers’ Perspective

Student Perspective/ Reflection Students were very honest in their reflection as to what skills they felt they mastered, still needed help with, or felt they could not do. At the end out of 36 students only 4 responded that they were not comfortable using the technology on their own Students were surprised at how well they were able to find information on their own in books, using the databases, and on the web. On sharing our projects with the Senior Citizens group one student said “I like having an audience, it makes me feel like my project was important… having to use the microphone was a little scary though.”

Parent/ Grandparent Perspective

•Great to see children independently locating information in books, on the web•Very impressed with how students used online databases at home•Blogging was a great way to follow along with what is happening in the classroom•Liked that students were presenting research to Senior Citizens-It gave children a sense that their research was important and had a purpose.•Seniors were very impressed with how easily the children used technology.

Resources

Images courtesy of amazon.com