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Overview:

Project Overview
The students will develop a student interest survey about what they think is important about their school. Students will gather data by interviewing our school population, and then record data using a spreadsheet program. Students will communicate the results of the data collection by creating charts and graphs and/or publish a newsletter to share these results.

Learning Focus for school:
• To gather and interpret data
• To use collected data to make decisions

21St Century Skill addressed in learning focus:
Students will develop:
• Basic, scientific and technological literacy
• Visual and information literacy
• Higher order thinking and sound reasoning
• Adaptability/managing complexity

Goal #3:
Students use the writing process to become more proficient writers throughout the content areas.

Submitted by:

Date Submitted: 6/7/01

Content Area:

Level: Grades K-12

Topic: Math/Language Arts/Technology

Timeframe: 2-3 weeks

Interactions: Pair/small group

Comments/additional instructions:
We feel that this project could serve as a basic introductory lesson for data collection and using Excel to represent the results. If your students already have experience using Excel, then you can extend the lesson to other content areas for inquiry projects. This lesson may be used as a schoolwide project or as a classroom-based activity. You can extend this project by challenging students to create a PowerPoint slideshow that presents all the findings. During Open House, have this electronic presentation running as a self-running slide show on a dedicated computer that is placed in the front entrance of the school.

Student Interest:
Technology/Pride in school/Building a school community

Student Role:
Investigator/Reporter/Editor

Audience for the task:
Students attending Binford Elementary School

Audience for the product:
Families and students of Binford Elementary

Lesson Plans

Before the project begins, the teacher will:
Brainstorm with the class about what is important to them in their school life. Use Inspiration software to manage ideas during this brainstorming session. Encourage students to think about different aspects of school life such as extracurricular events, academics (favorite subjects, books, topics to study), philanthropy, etc... Divide class into "school life" groups and have students develop questions for the survey that reflect their school life group.

During the project the teacher will:
Help assign students to classrooms to interview, assist in editing surveys, be available for computer questions.

At the completion of the project, the teacher will:
Grade the project according to the rubric. Arrange to set up computer to display results during Open House. Create a bulletin board to display charts and graphs created during this project.

Resources:

Equipment:
Computer with color printer

Software:
Microsoft Excel, Inspiration Software, Inc.

Other Resources:

Web Resources for Students:

Web Resources for Teachers:

Task/Prompt
Prompt:
Each year new students attend Binford Elementary whether they are 2^nd graders moving from Rogers Elementary School to Binford Elementary, students transferring from other schools in our MCCSC district, or students moving to Bloomington from another location. In addition, many times parents look at our school webpage to learn about Binford before making a decision to attend Binford.

Task:

Evaluation Rubric:

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You have to start with insufficient knowledge.
You have to have that kind of courage.
-- Robert Frost