Target Audience: 3rd Grade
Goal: Students will be able to examine bridges from around the world and share their research by creating a virtual book. Students can then showcase their work to their parents, peers, and my future students!
Part of the Portland Public School curriculum for third grade is a unit about the bridges within Portland. I believe it is important for students to learn about their local area, however, I believe it is critical for students to be exposed to other places in the world, too. For this project, I would like my students to explore the world through their knowledge of bridges. There are three parts to this assignment:
- Students will create a mind map using Popplet. Their mind maps will be about various bridges across the world. I will give them some “inspirational bridges” that they are more than welcome to research (i.e. the Golden Gate Bridge, Brooklyn Bridge, etc.), but they can also find a bridge of their own to do more research on. Their mind maps will include:
- The location of the bridge
- A brief history of the bridge
- The type of bridge (i.e. truss, arch, suspension, etc.)
- Fun facts
- Why they chose the specific bridge.
- Students will then create a book using BookCreator about their bridge with the use of their mind maps. Their mind maps will act as their writing outline, so they can easily organize their ideas as they wish. The book will include all of the elements that make up the mind maps, however, they do not need to use all of the details that they have in the mind map (reference my examples to see what I mean!). The students may also add an “about the author” section at the end of the book and write about where they’re from, how old they are, and what they learned from their research. After students create their books, our class will have an entire library of bridges that we can use for the rest of the school year and the years to come!
- Students will fill out a Google Form to provide some feedback for me!
This final project looks great to me Emma. I love the apps you used and think that they all work together to make such an amazing 3rd grade bridges project. I am able to see all of your links and it looks very good to me. The only thing I would maybe add is tell us what you are using your Drive survey for….is it to help students have a checklist of what they needed to do or how you are using this. I really think that a sentence will suffice. But wow I love your project. You have set the bar very high!
Hi Ellie!
Thank you so much for your feedback! I will be sure to add a short sentence in the description about the survey. You rock!
Emma,
Your lesson plan looks like so much fun! All of your activities are engaging and helps students better understand the lesson. I like the use of multiple technology pieces that we talked about in class, which are also easy for students to learn and use. The use of book creator is a great way to support collaboration for all the students. All the elements of your lesson plan seem to be well planned and provides meaningful learning to your students.
Hi Kali!
Thank you so much for the positive feedback! I had so much fun creating this lesson, and I’m excited to hopefully implement it into my classroom someday!
Emma wow this is great!!! I love how you branched off of the standard for learning about the bridges in Portland and connected it to Bridges around the world! I really like the reflective question in your survey asking what they learned. I think having students take the time to reflect on what they learned can be really valuable to them as well as inform you. Great job!