NPelletier

Nicole Pelletier EDC 448 Diverse Text Set

A. Print Resources

Text #1 • Citation: Nowicki, S. (2008). The biosphere & human impact on ecosystems. In Biology (pp. 454-513). Illinois: McDougal Littell. Retrieved February 26, 2008, from [|http://www.mcdougallittell.com] • Text Summary: Chapters 15 and 16 of Unit 5 focus on the biosphere and Human Impact on ecosystems. The biosphere chapter discusses the biomes that make of earth and what constitutes a biomes; it includes a small amount of information on rainforests. Chapter 16 discusses issues such as global warming in it’s discussion of how people can impact the earth and threaten biodiversity. Both chapters include concepts, relevant vocabulary and real life applications of the information. • Rationale- This text is extremely relevant to the study of biomes and biodiversity, it will provide students with clear meanings for different vocabulary terms as well as give them ideas about what a biome is made up of or why it is important. It is concise and at the reading level of advanced middle school readers or high school readers. • Use of Text: The text will be used as the main part of the unit on biodiversity, ecology and human impact on the environment. It will give the students an overview of what they will be learning in the unit and provide vocabulary • Attachment: The book can be found online at [|http://www.mcdougallittell.com.]

Text #2 • Citation: Butler, R. A. (2005). Deforestation charts: general overview. In Mongabay.com: tropical rainforests. Retrieved February 22, 2008, from Mongabay.com Web site: http://www.mongabay.com/general_tables.htm • Text Summary: The text consists of three charts that show the following: causes of deforestation in the Amazon between 2000-2005, Forest Cover in Borneo: Past and Future, and Share of Tropical Deforestation 2000-2005. The charts discuss the losses in different rain forests as well as future predicted losses and the major causes of deforestation. • Rationale: This text will provide visual learners with an aid to understanding more about why deforestation occurs and the effects that changes can have on an biome. It also broadens the students knowledge about where rainforests are located in the world and how development can change rainforests. Rainforests are one of the biomes that students will be interested in understanding. • Use of Text: This text will be used as an aid in giving students examples of how rainforests are lost through development and how quickly rainforest areas are changing. It will also broaden their knowledge of where rainforests are located as many may assume that rainforests are in South and Central America only. Students will be asked questions about the material in the charts and will be learning how to read pie charts if they are not already familiar with them. • Attachment: Three charts are attached.

Text #3 • Citation: Astor, M. (n.d.). Amazon Research Raises Tough Questions. Time Magazine. Retrieved February 21, 2008, from Time Magazine Web site: [|http://http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1709620,00.html]

• Text Summary: The article is about a researcher working in the Amazon to determine how rainforests help to combat global climate change. The research is currently coming to an end but there are still many unanswered questions about the sustainability of the rainforest and the effects of global warming. The study is based primarily in the Amazon and researchers have been measuring emissions in the atmosphere and looking at the many different ecological systems of the rainforest. • Rationale: This text allows students to look at some current research projects going on the Amazon and will help students understand scientific methods that go into ecology research. It also gives information about global warming on a broader spectrum that students may be able to relate to their own lives. • Use of Text: Students would read this text and write out questions they may have about the piece for a class discussion. Some students may know more about current events and global warming than others in the classroom. Students will use their questions in a classroom discussion where opinions about global warming will be encouraged as well as ideas about how to reduce global warming. Students will realize how the rainforest affects them in their everyday lives when I bring up topics about weather, increased emissions and sea levels rising. • Attachment: The article is attached- Amazon Research Raises Tough Questions.

Text #3 • Citation: Dudenhoefer, D. (2002). Life in San Miguelito. New York, NY: Rainforest Alliance.

• Text Summary: This short book is the journal of an 11 year old boy who lives in San Miguelito, El Salvador. He talks about his interest in science and discusses his family and life in El Salvador. He lives near a National Park and talks about the SalvaNatura group that visits his school and works to preserve the park. In the story, he also talks about his life at home which is much different than the lives of most American 5th graders. • Rationale: This journal is written by a student who is a few years younger than a typical 7th or 8th grade student but it will provide the student with a real life story of a child around their age who lives in a rainforest community. They will be able to relate the child even though he lives in a different culture. • Use of Text: This text will be used to help students understand what it is like to live in a country such as El Salvador and the importance that those native to the country place on the rainforest. They will learn that the entire world does not live in the same way that they do and that towns in central and South America are also learning to protect their own forests. • Attachment: The journal/short story is attached.

Text #4 • Citation: Cherry, L. (1990). The great kapok tree. New York, NY: The Trumpet Club.

• Text Summary: This text is a children’s book that shows the viewpoints of the animals and of a child who want to save the rainforest because it is part of their home. All living in the rainforest talk to the man who is about to cut down the Great Kapok tree that everyone benefits from and they convince him to leave the tree alone. The man originally started cutting down the tree because he was told to but once he sees everything that the rainforest has to offer, he learns how important it is to protect the rainforest. • Rationale: This text will be used in the beginning of the lesson as it is very easy to understand and a book that some of the students may have already read as children. It tells the story of why people need to make an effort to save the rainforest and introduces us to many animals found within the rainforest. • Use of Text: This text will be used to introduce one of the six biomes, the rainforest. As students are learning about different parts of ecology and research in ecology, they will need to understand what constitutes a biome. It is a basic understanding of a biome even though it does not use the same terminology as the textbook. • Attachment: The book is attached.

B. Media Resources Text #6: • Citation: Kim, S., Van Cleef, C., Wilk, A. C., Wood, J. F., & Long, P. (Producers). (2005). Really wild animals: totally tropical rain forest [Motion picture]. United States: National Geographic Video. • Text Summary: This educational video shows footage of animals that live at different levels of the rainforest. It is a compilation of video footage from different filmmakers and is educationally narrated by “Spin”, a cartoon character played by Dudley Moore. It discusses the environments in which the animals live and current issues with rainforest destruction. • Rationale: This fast moving video with footage of different animals and a humorous host will keep the attention of students while providing them with basic knowledge of the rainforest and possibly striking their interest in a topic that they may not know much about or have any interest in learning about. • Use of Text: This video could be used in the beginning of a unit on ecology and biodiversity to get students interested in the topic. It is a basic overview of the rainforest and will provide those students who do not have background knowledge about the topic with useful visual aids. Once the video has been shown, a discussion can be done in class talking about what the students think makes up a biome. They will not have heard the term in the film but may be able to make some inferences. • Attachment: This is a DVD video (I viewed on Itunes), I did not include it here.

Text #7 • Citation: Natural Sounds (2006). Rainforest Reverie. On Natural sounds for children Vol. 1 [CD]. Georgia: Paradise Music Ltd. • Text Summary: This audio recording features noises of the rainforest including rainfall, animal sounds and ambient noise. • Rationale: This audio recording will encourage students to think about the sounds they would hear if in the rain forest and may help them to visualize what they might find in a rainforest with their imaginations. • Use of Text: This audio recording could be used when the students are entering the classroom. If the lights are kept off and the music is playing at a moderate level, the students might have an idea of what the classroom activities will be focused on for the day and will hopefully be ready to start learning right away. The noise will help them imagine rainforests and get interested in the unit quickly. It will give them an idea that they will be talking about the environment and what makes up certain environments. • Attachment: This is a music file that I downloaded and can include it as a CD.

C. Online Interactive Resources- Text #8 • Citation: Neiman, D., Los, R., PBS Online, Fretwell, T., & Frostick, R. (n.d.). Play Amazon explorer. In Journey into Amazonia. Retrieved February 23, 2008, from PBS Online Web site: http://www.pbs.org/journeyintoamazonia/explorer.html

• Text Summary: This text is a themed informational website with interactive elements. The Amazon explorer interactive tool features questions that are asked in a quiz after going through different parts of an interactive rainforest and learning about different animals. Information is given about three different sections of the rainforest and then specific animals are featured in each section. Once students believe they know all of the animals, they can take the quiz on the questions that were shown to them previously. • Rationale: Students enjoy using technology and this interactive tool allows them to learn about different animals of the rainforest at their own pace. They can click on animals and areas more than once until they feel that they can answer the quiz questions. The quiz tells them if they have answered incorrectly and gives an opportunity to submit a new answer. It is educational and gives a moderate level of information about 12 different types of animals. • Use of Text: I would use this interactive tool in my classroom to give students information about animals that middle school students often find interesting. The information blocks about each animal are interesting and informative. In conjunction with this interactive element, I would ask students to take notes on 2 animals in each of the three sections that they may be interested in learning more about. • Attachment: The website with the interactive element is listed in the citation and below. http://www.pbs.org/journeyintoamazonia/explorer.html

Text #9 • Citation: The Nature Conservancy. (n.d.). Interactive rainforest quiz. In Rainforests. Retrieved February 22, 2008, from http://www.nature.org/rainforests/explore/quiz.html • Text Summary: This text is an online and interactive quiz about rainforests. • Rationale: This text tells students if they have answered questions correctly or not and allows them to answer until they have found the right answer. The questions may not be easy for all of the students but are important facts to know about the rainforest. It will give students an idea about how much they already know about the rainforest. • Use of Text: This text would be useful at the beginning of a lesson to determine how much students already know about rainforests as well as to get them interested in the topic. Many of the answers to the questions may surprise them which may push the students to want to learn more about rainforests and their role in the biosphere. Students will be encouraged to look for more information about rainforests on the website after completing the quiz and determining how much they know. • Attachment: The quiz is cited above and found at the following link. http://www.nature.org/rainforests/explore/quiz.html.

D. Instructional Resources:

Text #10 • Citation: TeAchnology. (n.d.). Rainforest teaching theme. In TeAchnology- the online teacher resource (rainforest background). Retrieved February 21, 2008, from http://www.teach-nology.com/themes/science/rain/ • Text Summary: This text provides many useful tools for teachers of different grade levels including a background knowledge section, worksheets, hands on activities, interactive sites, web quests, bulletin boards and vocabulary builders. Each section provides links to useful tools or alternate websites. • Rationale: This text could be very beneficial to a teacher who is teaching a rainforest lesson plan. It gives information for many different grade levels which teachers may need to search through to create a lesson appropriate for their students. It will provide teachers with information to help their students learn and useful tips and tools for teaching concepts that might be difficult to explain. The worksheets, hands on activities and interactive tools will cater to different types of learners; while the information on this site can also help teachers teach to students at a variety of cognitive levels. • Use of Text: The resources found on this website will be used by myself as the teacher and can be shared with team to work towards creating an integrated lesson plan. This text provides background information, teaching strategies and activities for the entire class. • Attachment: The website is cited above and is also listed as the following: [|http://www.teach-nology.com/themes/science/rain/.]

Description of Context- These texts will be used when teaching a middle school lesson on ecology and biomes. This lesson will be part of a larger unit with this particular section focusing on tropical rainforests. Tropical rainforests are full of life and species diversity that students may find interest in learning about. After learning about tropical rainforests, they will continue onto other biomes and learn what species are found in each. The study of biomes, biodiversity and ecology is important for students to understand because what happens around the world also affects them in their everyday lives. Global warming and natural resource depletion are going to be prevalent topics for students later in life and they should know what they are able to do now to help the world.

Using the texts together: These texts will be used together as they are all of different reading abilities and cover different types of information about rainforests, biomes and ecology. Some of the texts give a general overview of what is generally found in the rainforest, while others provide information about deforestation and the rainforests relation to global warming. The texts show a variety of different views but all have the main focus that rainforests need to be protected in order to maintain biodiversity in the biome. The texts are also at different levels which may be beneficial to those students who are not strong readers or who are have difficulty with maintaining interest in a topic. The video, music, children’s book and online quiz will be used in the beginning of the lesson; while the articles, textbook chapter, charts and interactive online activity will be used throughout the lesson to increase the students understanding beyond on a basic level.

Learning Objectives: Content- o To understand how the rainforest is important part of our earth’s biodiversity. o To gain an in-depth understanding of the rainforest and be able to apply it to further understanding of our earth and current environmental issues. o To understand what constitutes a biome and be able to explain the differences between different types of biomes. o To understand how the scientific method is used for research in Ecology and how the research done can impact the daily lives of people.

The learning objectives are based on national science education content standard C.

http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/nses/6d.html#csc58


 * Structure and function in living systems
 * Reproduction and heredity
 * Regulation and behavior
 * Populations and ecosystems
 * Diversity and adaptations of organisms

Reading- o Students will gain an understanding of ecology, biomes, the rainforest and current issues through a video, music, varied types of text and an interactive online assignment. o The reading levels are varied with the simplest being found in the children’s book and the most difficult in the article from Time Magazine. Students will be utilizing strategies such as questioning and summarizing to understand the texts. Throughout the movie, students will takes notes about what they think might make up a biome and will write down important vocabulary words for a word wall. o Students will learn about reading strategies for reading pie charts as well as magazine articles and will strengthen their ability to read and understand various types of texts.

These objectives are based off of the following National Reading Standards from: http://www.ncte.org/about/over/standards/110846.htm


 * 1) Students read a wide range of print and non-print texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and nonfiction, classic and contemporary works.

Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems. They gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g., print and non-print texts, artifacts, people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose and audience.

Hi Nicole, I would say, although the format of the text set confused me slightly at first, there is a good selection of texts being used to teach your biology lesson. I would just suggest maybe introducing the context of the text set at the beggining of the set. I love how you chose a game as one of your interactive resources, it will be great when you are trying to get students to be interested in learning about the rainforest and environment. I also think that you did an excellent job with choosing texts that appeal to readers of differing reading capabilities especially because of the diary of the 11 year old boy. I'm sure that you would have no problem using most of these texts in an actual unit, as long as you offered some assistance in interpreting the deforestation graphs. Jen Cullen