"Show Me Missouri's Temperatures"

The objective of this lesson was to integrate multiple subject matters into an activity concerning temperatures amongst some of Missouri's cities. The instructor begins the lesson by introducing the students to some classical music and asking her students what the music, appropriately titled by the names of the four seasons, inspires their minds to consider. Next, she creates a KWL (know, wonder, learn) chart before showing a short video about weather changes. The student's then look on the internet as a class to gather temperature readings and, ultimately, enter their data into an excel spreadsheet to create graphs and determine the average temperatures in five Missouri cities. At the end of their lesson, the class returns to their KWL chart and goes through the questions that they wondered about to answer them with what they learned through completing the activity.

I particularly enjoyed the way this teacher made the information relevant to the individuals in her classroom by completing the KWL chart and directing their studies towards the questions the students wondered about. Also, it was impressive how effectively she managed to integrate multiple disciplines along with technology. My only criticisms would be the students not gathering their internet data independently, weather information is not difficult to find, and the instructor easily could have helped students independently that were having trouble or presented them with websites to visit. This would have also helped them learn techniques for independent internet research and contributed to the authenticity of the activity.