\\Teacher Resources
Introducing ExploraVision / Motivating Your TeamClassroom tips: Elementary / Middle and Junior High / High School
Classroom Tips - Middle/Junior High School
Do your students think science is boring or irrelevant to everyday life? Are you looking for a way to spark their interest? Try ExploraVision!
Let ExploraVision harness your students' imaginations — you'll see the sparks of new interest in other areas as you move through your science curriculum. You can even make the project a major part of the team's science (and perhaps language arts) curriculum for several months.
Why does ExploraVision make sense for early adolescents?
- Contests are excellent motivators for students at this age — many of whom are increasingly experienced with various technologies such as computers, communications equipment, household appliances and other tools.
- ExploraVision fits very well with the recommendations of the National Science Education Standards and state frameworks at the middle-school level.
- Early adolescent students are capable of the reasoning necessary to carry out a design project. They have an increasingly greater familiarity with technology and are building the foundations of in-depth science knowledge.
- When there is authentic learning that is practical and relevant to their lives, students are motivated and have positive attitudes about school and learning. They also retain learned information longer, and this knowledge transfers to other domains.
MIDDLE AND JUNIOR-HIGH SCHOOL KIDS CAN DO IT!
The 1996 first-place-winning team in this category — a team from Inlet View in Anchorage, Alaska — combined its understanding of the life sciences with technological innovation. The students thought of a new lighting system using Genetically Enhanced Bioluminescent Organisms (GEBO). The new lights would be composed of organisms serving as hosts for light-giving bacteria. GEBOs would provide inexpensive, natural lighting inside or outside the home.
Organizing a Middle or Junior-High School ExploraVision Team
Click here for general tips on helping students of all levels
1. Develop a Team of 2–4 Students
At this age level, you can select students who show interest — or open the competition up to the entire class and have students create their own teams. While you're describing the program's rewards, you should also explain that the contest requires work outside regular class time. It's a smart idea to have interested students commit up front to the weekly time required.
- Make sure team members really want to participate. They must be hard workers and be able to stick with tasks over a period of time.
- Look for students who are able to partner with others and motivated to get to together frequently and work.
- Try to combine students with complementary talents that can help support the group effort.
- Emotional maturity is a factor — team members must be willing to learn how to put forth their own ideas but not be upset if the group chooses a different option.
- Ask a parent or a local technical professional to act as a mentor. This person may help you with some of the administrative chores, give the students guidance and help with research, and identify community members who might be able to provide information — such as experts in local engineering or technology firms, businesspeople or university researchers.
- Encourage the students to involve their families in their work and try to ensure parental buy-in. Even very motivated students may not be able to pull their weight if their parents are unable to provide them with transportation and other support.
2. Brainstorm to Select a Topic
Help the team select a topic that is clever and actually in the realm of possibility 20 years from now. This process may take a few weeks or more. Guide students to look at technologies they see every day, as this age group can readily identify with things that are part of their lives. But once they get rolling, stay in the background. The students need to "own" the work, to see that it is theirs and not just another part of the required schoolwork.
3. Research the Technology
- First, find an expert. No matter how good your students' research skills, most will find contact with someone in the field they are studying to be the best source of information. This person will probably also be able to suggest other sources for research. You or your mentor may need to set up the initial contact, and go with students to their first meeting. You might even be able to establish an e-mail dialogue that's mutually beneficial.
- Next, hit the library, museums and the Internet.
4. Complete the Entry
- During the process, touch base to ensure that every team member is making progress on his/her contribution and will have it ready in time for the entry deadline. Check the students' work to make sure that all the pieces are ready, then have them prepare the Abstract, Description and Web page graphics. Please note: The students should do all of the writing.
- As the deadline approaches, you'll need to help your students with the administrative aspects of completing their entry. They'll need assistance with proofreading the Description, checking the Web page graphics, making the appropriate number of photocopies, and assembling the entry before it is mailed. Most important, you can help make your students leave plenty of time for last-minute details.
- Don't let the team's hard work go to waste because their entry gets disqualified. Make sure that the students actually complete their entries and mail them on time. Go through the checklist with the team members to ensure rules and directions have been followed to the letter.
"Any time that students spend on this project is likely to be more profitable than just trying to earn grades for required school work. Therefore, I would suggest that ExploraVision teams be provided class time and release time from some of the regular classwork and homework. This could easily involve a school-wide project where teachers coordinated their efforts."
— Thomas Hancock, Heritage Southwest Academy, Scottsdale, Arizona
Content Standard E: Science and Technology
As a result of activities in grades 5-8, all students should develop:
- Abilities of technological design
- Identify appropriate problems for technological design
- Design a solution or product
- Implement a proposed design
- Evaluate completed technological designs or products
- Communicate the process of technological design
- Understandings about science and technology
