Nov 13 ~ 3rd Grade PBL's on Animals

 

Animals and Spring Creek!

Third PBL panel sitting in three weeks, but I never get tired of watching kids present and listening to what they learned during their projects!

This time around, 3rd graders shared with panel members what they have been learning about animals that use Spring Creek in the winter. This PBL was special to me because it's the first one I helped with solo (with PBL materials supplied by Dr. Barbara Shaw, STEM/K-12 Specialist).

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Sunflower Bird Feeder

3rd graders were definitely nervous going into presentations, but once they began to speak they showed they were confident about the information presented. Oct-Nov they had been learning about winter habits of animals and how they survive, experimented with bird diets (See Oct 21-22 Blog on Bird Feeder experiment), and learned how to ID birds by their silhouette's when we can't ID them with normal factors.

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Wild Turkey Silhouette

The presentations used either photo slide shows or full power point presentations. Props to elementary students who can design a full power point on a touch screen I-Pad...I'm still partial to a mouse and keyboard myself.

A popular topic presented was how pollution affects animals in Spring Creek. Youth discussed everything from sources of pollution to how pollution flows downstream and can affect everyone from resident birds to whales in the ocean! Way to think big on your PBL 3rd grade!

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I am a STEM/k12 Educator with Colorado State University Extension. I love working with youth and encouraging them to participate in many forms of hand on education! Overall, our goal is to promote positive youth development and encourage youth to pursue higher education after high school.

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