#944. Integrating Math/Science/Reading

Reading/Writing, level: Elementary
Posted Sun Apr 4 11:46:44 PDT 1999 by Susan Werkheiser (swerky@epix.net).
Bushkill Elementary School, East Stroudsburg, PA USA
Materials Required: art supplies, examples of graphs of all types, nonfiction books about animals
Activity Time: 90 minutes
Concepts Taught: Reading, research, graphing, nature

During a reading unit, my students realized that some animals were very misunderstood due to misinformation on the general public's behalf. They read about different animals (wolves, black bear), researched the facts then decided to find out how widespread the false information was.
The students had already done graphing in math earlier in the year. After conducting a review of the different types of graphs (pie, picture, line, bar) the students, as a whole group, came up with survey questions. They used "strongly agree, agree, no opinion, disagree, strongly disagree"
as possible responses. Questions were similar to "Do you think black bears should be held in captivity?" etc. Students wordprocessed their surveys and were ready to gather their information.
The students asked parents, other teachers, and others to fill out surveys. We tallied the responses. The students then worked in cooperative groups to create a graph of each type to show the survey results. They loved pretending they were researchers. In fact, one of my students got to go
with a game commission officer who was tagging black bears.
Evaluation can be based on a rubric which is teacher made, depending on what you are focusing on.