Expert Projects

I am having a difficult time keeping up with our blog. I am so sorry about that. As a I shared at Curriculum Night, students would be engaging in their first Expert Project of the year. Their expert project is on ecosystems. Each student is in charge of researching a particular ecosystem, uncovering all they can about that ecosystem, then identify various characteristics of that ecosystem such biotic and abiotic factors, identifying herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores, etc. We begun research yesterday and student expert projects will be due the week of November 11 - 14.

There are three parts to the expert project:

  • Written Portion - students are expected to type two pages, double-spaced, sharing their ecosystem
  • Slideshow Presentation - students will put together a slideshow to present to their peers. This slideshow will provide visuals and diagrams (food chains and webs) of their ecosystem
  • Verbal Portion - to go along with their slideshow, students must practice what they'll say during their slideshow. They may put together notecards but they will not read from these notecards. Students are expected to "speak from the heart" 
Most work will be done in class. We will use our normal science time and explorations for conducting research, taking our writing through the authoring cycle, putting together slide shows, etc. Their homework for this expert project will mainly comprise of continuing their work from class. To continue this work at home, students will need to access their school accounts. 

The class created a timeline of when items are due. This expert project will be a good exercise in keeping deadlines, organizing work, and staying on task. They have placed these dates into their Google Calendar and added reminders to help they stay on task.


Timeline when things are due:

Ø  Begin Expert Project – Tuesday, October 22, 2013
Ø  Most of your research completed – Wednesday, October 30
Ø  Outline for written part – Friday, November 1
Ø  Written portion completed – Wednesday, November 6
Ø  Verbal portion completed – Day of your presentation (Nov. 11 – 14)
Ø  Practice slide show with parents – Due before your presentation. Turn in parent feedback form day of your presentation. Will send this out at a later time.
Ø  Slide show completed – Day of your presentation (Nov. 11 – 14)
Ø  Curriculum Night Share Fair – Thursday, November 14
      Ø Whole school Share Fair – Friday, November 15

I an also including links to the rubric and timeline we are using the help keep students on track and the expert project outline.

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