Google Earth Landforms Project

Google Earth Landforms Project

As a part of our landforms unit, we’ve been using Google Earth in the classroom. Now it’s time for you to use it to complete a project!

Assignment: Choose one landform from those we have studied - mountain, volcano, delta, canyon, glacier, mesa, etc. Research a real life example of that landform and locate it on Google Earth. Hint: Many national parks have amazing landforms! Record the name and location of the landform (absolute and/or relative location) so you can find it again later. Research and record how that landform was created. Be able to share this information with the class. While you are teaching the class, you also need to have seven accurate facts about your landform. You may also wish to demonstrate one interesting feature of the Google Earth program.

Here are some of the results-

Changes to make for next time: 

• Spend more time working with GOOGLE EARTH before and during the project.
• Have the students create a powerpoint to use during the actual presentation.

Gallon Man Contest

Measurement and Capacity can be a challenging concept for many students. Therefore, I taught them through the story of GALLON MAN.

Gallon Man Sample Lesson Plan

We took a slightly different approach and created GALLON MAN using his HEAD. We then had a contest for students to submit their GALLON MAN drawings to be laminated and hung in our classroom (also a great way to have a reminder poster for capacity).

See pictures:

Changes for the future use of this project: Give them larger pieces of paper so they can become large enough posters to see from far away in the classroom.

Create a Country

We did this activity as a team building activity over the course of about three days (Morning Meeting time only). The students were to create a country with their teammates. They had to come up with the following BEFORE creating the actual visual:

Country's Name

License Plate

National Bird

National Flower

The Flag

After they completed their activity they presented their visuals and went over the items they were required to produce. They were also asked the following follow up questions:

1. How were decisions made in your group?

2. Is everyone happy with what was decided? Why or why not?

3. What things are important to remember when making group decisions?

4. How can you tell if a group has been successful?

5. Why is it important to be able to make decisions as a member of a group?

These were the final products-

They LOVED this project and really got a lot out of working together. The answers to the follow up questions were really insightful. Next time I would ask them to answer them on a small sheet of paper as a reflection rather than discussion to see if their answers would've changed.

Landforms

The fifth grade curriculum requires us to teach Landforms in Science. As with most concepts in Science, this is one that can be a bit difficult to understand AND remember. Therefore towards the end of our unit I pulled out the markers and large paper and got started... I started to draw various landforms on the large paper and explain what they were. When it all came together it resulted in what looked like a dinosaur. From there I had the students create pictures that incorporated various landforms in creative ways- many chose to continue on the path of dinosaurs (since they are interested in them) but some really added a lot to it (even pulling from our weather unit that we did previously).

Here is the Project Poster for the hallway:

These are some of the outcomes:

This one incorporates a lot of weather information as well:

It is hard to see but they even cover the layers of the rainforest (the trees) which I taught them as a mini lesson- we are moving on to Ecosystems next.

Name Team Building

Every morning I lead a morning meeting with my fifth graders. Every day of the week is a specific theme-

Mondays are "My Recap Mondays"

Tuesdays are "Team Building Tuesdays"

Wednesdays are "What's Up Wednesdays" [Current Events]

Thursdays are "Thoughtful Thursdays"

Fridays are "Friendship Fridays" [Book Buddies with the kindergarten students.]

Today, is Tuesday- "Team Building Tuesday" to be exact and that is exactly what we did. For our activity today the students were shown a white piece of paper with my (last) name spelled across it.

             B  A  N   K   E   N   B   U  S  H

After reviewing ACROSTIC poems from the previous week I told the students their goal was to work as a team to include EVERY student's name on the BANKENBUSH sign. Every student had to somehow be connected back to my last name.

They had a time limit to complete this task with very little direction outside of what I stated above. After the first go around we discussed what the positives were as well as what the deltas (things they could've done differently) were. Here is what they came up with:

+

Didn't argue with each other.

Chose a team leader.

Had a place for everyone to go when they were finished writing their name.

Deltas

Not everyone sat where they should've when they were done.

Everyone wanted to share their ideas with the team leader even though they weren't in charge.

People were talking out of turn.

Too much confusion.

Too much going on.

After discussing control and the deltas that they shared we came up with possible solutions.

Solutions

Team leader discusses with the class their strategies BEFORE starting.

Team leader calls on who to come up.

Separate the students into groups- 5 letters or below on one side and 6+ letters in your name on the other.

When you're finished sit back in your seats instead of on the floor to help organize.

Remember to include all students- even those who are missing.

The second time around went by MUCH better. Few results we had:

1. The team leader ended up forgetting her own name because she was so worried about everyone else.

2. Once they were told one minute warning a few students starting calling out suggestions in a panic that they wouldn't be done on time- again, going back to control.

It turned out really insightful for all the students and for myself.