assessment
This unit provides many opportunities for hands-on demonstration of content acquisition. Especially on Day 5, the students should be exhibiting their level of comprehension. With that being said, there are some more traditional summative assessment methods that we can utilize.
- Unit test: As I stated in the introduction, this Unit could easily be divided into two separate Units, one on Earth/Moon/Sun, and one on the Water Cycle. Unit Tests could then be given separately or as one, depending on the abilities of your class. Assessment questions should focus on causality, not just vocabulary. In other words, it is more important for the student to understand why we have day and night and what causes the seasons, instead of just defining axis, orbit, etc.
- Interactive Notebooks: Notebooks can be used as summative assessments as well. Activities for each lesson could be given, requiring the students to illustrate the concepts we have learned, using correct terminology and placement.
- Posters/Projects: The class could be assigned projects, requiring them to diagram the rotation of the Earth, its axis, revolution around the Sun, seasons, and so on. Or they could be asked to create a model of the water cycle, such as this one, and label it and explain what is occurring.