Sample Lesson Plans
Tracking
Lesson
Homepage
322.3 | Homepage
324.3 | Homepage
327.3 | Homepage 421.3 |
Homepage 423.3
Sample Lesson Plans | Teaching
Methods
For best print results: download MS Word file | download PDF file
Pre-Visit Lesson: With care partners, students read The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats With care partners, students make tracks in their school yard, noting the differences between their tracks and their partners’.
Learning Objectives: This lesson could fit a number of foundational objectives in grade 6 Ecosystems, grade 7 Saskatchewan the Land, (by stretching you can meet learning objectives for grade 7, Force and Motion, and Heat and Temperature)
Factors of Scientific Literacy: A5 empirical, A8 tentative, B5 perception, B8 quantification, C5 measuring, C7 using numbers, C9 inferring, C12 interpreting data, C15 analyzing, E6 measuring distance, Fl longing to know and understand, F4 valuing natural environments. Assessment tools do not address A8, F1
Common Essential Learnings: critical and creative thinking, numeracy
Instructional Method: Guided Inquiry
Materials: metre sticks, warm clothes, handouts with pencils and clip boards for each student.
Motivational Set: Remind students of reading The Snowy Day with and then taking their care partners out to the school ground to make tracks. Mention that there are technologies now for tracking the movement of living things, including heat sensitive satellite images. However, when a small organism (such as a child) becomes lost, human trackers are the best resource for finding them. Today, they are going to learn how human trackers follow a trail. They will also learn how tracks can be interpreted to tell a story. At the end of this activity, the students should be able to “read” tracks to tell a story, much as they would read a book.
Student activity:
1. Students will gather in a circle, comfortably separated from one another,
all facing to the centre where the teachers are located. Teachers will give
each student a clip board with pencils and paper handouts, and will give each
student a metre stick.
2. Each student will measure the length of his/her leg from heel to hip pivot
point. (It will be difficult to find the exact hip pivot point through warm
clothes, but an estimate is good enough.)
3. Each student will walk normally, ten steps. S/he will measure the total
distance covered in those ten steps, from initial heel track to final heel
track, and will calculate an average step. The teacher will collect the data
on leg length and average step length for each student.
4. Each student will now go back to his/her steps, examine and fill in information
on their work sheets.
5. Students will return to the central location, and will run ten steps. They
will repeat steps 3 and 4 above, recording information on their clip boards.
6. Students will return to the central location, and will walk ten steps backwards.
They will repeat steps 3 and 4 above, recording information on their work
sheets.
7. Students will return to the central location, and will debrief their observations.
What differences did they notice between their walking and running footprints
and walking backwards footprints? Meanwhile the teacher should have examined
all the information about leg length and step length, and can tell the students
if there is a predictable relationship between the two.
8. All students will be blindfolded. The teacher will select two student to
remove their blindfolds and to move ten steps in any way they like from the
central location, then return to the central location and put their blindfolds
back on. Then all students will remove their blindfolds. The teacher must
emphasize that the students must take great care while examining the footprints
that they do not destroy any “data”. Then half the students are put in one
group for examining one set of prints, the other half are put in another group
to examine the other set of prints. The teacher will show each group the initial
print. Each student in the group is to record the story told by the tracks.
Each student is to deduce who made the tracks as part of their story, and
should justify why this hypothesis was made. Remind the students that they
are part of a team. The story each member of the team tells should be similar,
so the teacher knows they worked together.
Debrief: How does a tracker tell a story from footprints? What information were you able to deduce from the tracks you followed? What more information do you think you could learn to deduce from footprints?
Assessment Tool: When students return indoors, they can fill in the question sheet, or they can write about what they have learned in their journals. Journal stem: “Today, I was a tracker, and I have a story to tell about”
Tracking Data Sheets
Date :__________________________
Weather and Snow Conditions:______________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________
Name of Investigator :___________________________
|
Length
of leg from heel to hip point
(cm) |
Length
of ten walking steps
(m) |
Length
of average step
(m) |
Walking
Sketch of Footprint
|
|
|
Depth of
footprint in tracked snow
(cm) |
Depth of
footprint in fresh snow
(cm) |
Depth of
footprint in windblown snow
(cm) |
Amount of crumbling around the footprint:_____________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Scuff marks before or after the footprints? Describe:_____________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Other interesting details:____________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________
Running
Name of Investigator :___________________________
|
Length
of leg from heel to hip point
(cm) |
Length
of ten running steps
(m) |
Length
of average running step
(m) |
Sketch of Footprint:
|
|
|
Depth of
footprint in tracked snow
(cm) |
Depth of
footprint in fresh snow
(cm) |
Depth of
footprint in windblown snow
(cm) |
Amount of crumbling around the footprint:_____________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Scuff marks before or after the footprints? Describe:_____________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Other interesting details:____________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Walking Backwards
Name of Investigator :___________________________
|
Length
of leg from heel to hip point
(cm) |
Length
of ten backwards steps
(m) |
Length
of average backward step
(m) |
Sketch of Footprint:
|
|
|
Depth of
footprint in tracked snow
(cm) |
Depth of
footprint in fresh snow
(cm) |
Depth of
footprint in windblown snow
(cm) |
Amount of crumbling around the footprint:_____________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Scuff marks before or after the footprints? Describe:_____________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Other interesting details:____________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
Summary
Name:__________________________
Was there a relationship between the leg length and the length of an average footstep?
What was the relationship? Express this relationship mathematically.
Can you know for sure that this relationship is always true? (Justify your answer.)
Describe the differences between running and walking footprints.
What information would you seek to determine if a person were walking or running?
What information would you seek to determine if a person were walking forwards or backwards?
In your small group, you should have been able to deduce who had left the footprints. However, if you found a set of human footprints, near the Forestry Farm Park, what information could you tell from the footprints?
What further information would you need to decide who had left those prints?
Learning Objectives: This lesson could fit a number of foundational objectives in grade 6 Ecosystems, grade 7 Saskatchewan the Land, (by stretching you can meet learning objectives for grade 7, Force and Motion, and Heat and Temperature)
Factors of Scientific Literacy: A5 empirical, A8 tentative, B5 perception, B8 quantification, C5 measuring, C7 using numbers, C9 inferring, C10 predicting, C12 interpreting data, C15 analyzing, C16 designing experiments, D8 limitations of science and technology, E6 measuring distance, Fl longing to know and understand, F4 valuing natural environments. Choose three to five to focus on, and develop an assessment tool to ensure that these FSL are being taught
Common Essential Learnings: critical and creative thinking, numeracy
Instructional Method: Guided Inquiry
Materials: Laminated booklets with drawings of tracks of various animals likely to be found in Beaver Creek area.
Activity:
1. Teacher will summarize that now the students have learned to tell a story from a set of human tracks, they will now investigate tracks of animals in the natural environment of Beaver Creek. Ask what animals they expect to find tracks of. Which of these animals are wild, which are feral, which are domestic? (Teachers will probably have to define “feral” which is the adjective used to describe an animal that was/should be domestic, but has escaped into the wild. Feral animals do not typically live very long.) As students brainstorm names of animals, encourage them to expand beyond mammals. Also, encourage them to be specific. “Birds” is a class of animals, as is mammals. Students are likely to suggest deer and birds in the same breath. Ask what kind of deer. Ask what kind of birds. Ask if they think they will find any insect tracks.
2. Divide students into five unequal size groups. The lead teacher and one student will be in front on the trail. They are to examine the trail for tracks of animals that have used the trail since the last group of people messed up the tracks. The second group of students is to look to the right of the trail. The third group of students is to look to the left of the trail. Most of the students should be in these two groups. Have approximately four students in each of these groups. Only have a these last two groups if there are students still not in groups: The fourth group of students is to look behind to the right. The fifth group of students is to look behind to the left. Have no more than two students in each of these groups.
3. Before setting out, remind the students of their roles. If they see tracks where they weren’t supposed to be looking, they should not call these out, unless they are in the last group. Remind them that they are to stay on the trails! When a student notices a set of tracks in a place where s/he was supposed to be looking, that student should call out to the group. The following teacher will then go to that spot, and the students will gather around in such a way that the tracks are not stepped on. REMEMBER: when a student calls out about tracks, all students are to freeze, the following teacher must first go to the tracks, then s/he will call the students to that location.
4. Lead teacher should lead the students quietly and briskly. The students need to be active to be warm! Stop the students just behind the houses in the core area to listen for sounds of wildlife. Stop the students again on the bridge, to remind them of the rules for tracking in a group. Be quick you do not want them to get cold.
5. When students find a set of tracks, encourage them to draw on what they have learned to tell a story about the animal. Was the animal dragging its belly or its tail? Was that animal heavy or light? Did the animal have long or short legs? Then get out their laminated booklets to determine what animal might have left those tracks. Where was it going? What reason might the animal have had to go there? What can they learn about the animal’s habits by examining the tracks?
6. If, after finding two or more sets of tracks, the students seem to be cold and loosing interest because of the cold, increase the pace, telling them it is time to get back to the hall.
Debrief: (in the hall) How does a tracker tell a story from footprints? What information were you able to deduce from the tracks you followed? What more information do you think you could learn to deduce from footprints?
Assessment Tool: Divide the students into small groups of four or five. Have each small group role play the animals they tracked and themselves as the trackers, deducing what the animals did. Journal stem: “Today I tracked an __________ and its story is”
Homepage 322.3 | Homepage 324.3 | Homepage 327.3 | Homepage 421.3 | Homepage 423.3