Plant Reproduction
Create an interactive presentation about plant reproduction
Background
Students who can synthesize information from a variety of sources are students who show that they have mastered a concept. By combining facts from a selection of resources, students can demonstrate that the understand the facts themselves and the relationship between the facts. Using presentation tools like Prezi, students can create a thinking map of those facts and show the relationships between them through hyperlinks and flow of the presentation.
Example
Students in 7th grade life science should learn about the structures that make reproduction in plants possible. Specifically, they need to know the functions of each part of a male and female plant and the general flow of the life cycles of flowering plants. In this project, students will use everything that they know to create an interactive presentation which begins with a labeled diagram or photograph. That first "slide" is made up of a series of hyperlinks to other slides or web resources that describe the structure and the function of the structure and it's role in the reproduction of a plant. For example, if a viewer clicks on the label for "anther," they will be taken to a "slide" that describes what an anther is, what it does, and what role it plays in plant reproduction. Students should include a variety of media, including video, animations, and images.
Plant Structure and Reproduction
Challenge
Try this project with your students the next time that they have to show how multiple parts work together to make up a whole system. Students could show the parts of a cell, the systems of the human body, the multiple lines of evidence that prove the theory of evolution, the different types of inheritance in Mendelian genetics, the parts of the scientific method...the possibilities are limitless!
Let me know how it went in the comments below. What would you do to improve this S.O.S.?
Citations
Discovery Education . anther. [Animation]. Available from http://www.discoveryeducation.com/
Discovery Education, . Pea plant life cycle. [Image]. Available from http://www.discoveryeducation.com/
Greenhoff, K. (N.d). Plant Reproduction. http://prezi.com/prgrsxnzp9hz/plant-reproduction/