Violent Weather Project

My task for class this week was to learn and complete assignments about violent weather, which could be found here. This topic is very interesting to learn about, and students are usually excited to be taught about it. So, I was happy when this topic was assigned to me. My first task was to learn more about violent weather in general by watching a video. I learned that severe weather is different than regular weather because it's a dangerous act of nature that puts animals, people and buildings at risk. I really liked the idea of the format of the assignment because the video was entertaining and informative then I was able to share my response in the notes. After this, I was given a collage of pictures including tornadoes, hurricanes, avalanches, earthquakes, droughts, blizzards and a flood. I wrote at least four questions I had about the images and wrote how the pictures made me felt. I thought the pictures were shocking because I have never seen how much damage severe weather could actually cause. Then I had to pick which form of violent weather I wanted to focus on. There were six options, but  I chose to focus on avalanches because I thought the picture provided was really different than anything I've ever seen and I wanted to learn more. The image provided made the snow look like a rapid waterfall and I wanted to know more. I was then redirected to another google doc where I learned more just about avalanches, which could be found here.  I learned so many new and interesting facts about avalanches. I really enjoyed the layout of the assignment because I was provided links and articles to explain what I learned but I was also able to write my own thoughts. Once I completed this assignment, I wrote my own natural disaster poem specifically on avalanches. I really liked this part of the assignment because this was a great way to connect science to writing. Students can write about the weather in general, how it made them felt, what they learned, and much more.  I think this would be successful in a classroom because sometimes students find it hard to find something to write a poem on but a natural disaster could be a great starting point.

Beneath the clouds of snow is a rocky cliff
The frozen hills are fused with ice
But snow begins to slip from under my feet.
The snow begins to race to the bottom
But my heart is racing faster.
The calm fluffy snow
Became a crashing sea.

Teaching students about violent weather can be very interesting, especially elementary school students. This type of topic would be perfect for an inquiry lesson that goes over the five E's: engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluate. In this type of lesson, students are given learning experiences and they can gain new ideas through their own inquiry. It's very student-centered and appropriate for this content-area. Students will probably have a lot of questions about this topic, so at the beginning of a unit about violent weather, I would recommend doing pre-assessment or survey to see what questions the class has. You can take the most common questions and then have those be the focus of the inquiry lesson. Inquiry lessons are best held the day after a direct instruction lesson, although you can really do them anytime. So, on the first day of the unit plan the teacher should find out student misconceptions and questions. The second day, the teacher should teach a direct instruction lesson to clear up the student misconceptions and teach them new things. Then, the students should move primarily to inquiry lessons for this topic. This could be used in our future classrooms by a Flipped Classroom Method of teaching, this is where students go home learn about the topic on their own then present their findings to the class. This template could be used for any subject or topic. Here is a website where lesson plan templates for each subject can be found.