Pioneer Middle School 5th grade students recently completed animal research projects.
Teacher Allison Schwab said, "We started this writing unit about 10 days ago to pair with our new reading series. We are currently in the unit called 'Lives of Animals'. The main focus is what can we learn about ourselves by interacting and studying animals.
"We read various stories about animals - a life changing moment for a gorilla, dolphin parenting, friendship between animals and more," Mrs. Schwab continued. "This led us to our writing unit in which we put a little twist on to give them some time to explore animals through the lens of a researcher."
The five 5th grade English Language Arts teachers—Mrs. Jessica Kleinschmidt, Mrs. Lisa Mangino, Mr. Mark Mitrowski, Mrs. Kristen Kanner and Mrs Schwab—decided to narrow down each of their classrooms to a specific biome or habitat.
"Once we had our classroom biome we dove into research all about that biome," Mrs. Schwab said. "Our middle school Library Media Specialist, Mrs. Amanda Racitano, gave our classrooms ad amazing kick off to our unit with a two-day introduction to biomes and research.
"We then went back to our rooms to dive deeper for a few days with our specific biomes. My classroom is studying the Ocean biome," said Mrs. Schwab.
To take it a step further, Mrs. Schwab said her students got to pick an ocean animal that interested them the most to learn more about. "In my classrooms each student picked their animal and did an individual project. On the other hand, some classrooms made it a partner project. The students all had to fill out their scientist research packets with information all about their animals. They then had to chose which type of project they would like to present this information in: a PowerPoint, brochure, poster or trifold."
Once they selected their project they got to work. All students typed introduction paragraphs about their animals. They designed their projects in school with more interesting information and facts about their animals.
"They really took it to the next level with their projects with lights, motors, artifacts, paint, glitter, ribbon, objects and more," Mrs. Schwab said.
On April 6, students presented final projects to their class. They had a 5th Grade celebration in which they rotated through the other classrooms to view their projects and give them some great feedback to celebrate. Students were seen walking around with clipboards and "Fact Tracker" papers to record the facts they learn throughout the other biomes.
"This was a great research project and the students worked so hard!" Mrs. Schwab said.