It is time to show what you know! In the Elaborate activity, you tested breakfast cereals. Now, during this Evaluate activity, you need to write your article for Teen Consumer Magazine. You will share the results of your tests. You will also practice communicating your ideas in writing. Materials
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Write an article of at least 200 words for Teen Consumer Magazine. You may want to read the Elaborate activity’s Call for Articles again. Include the information from the following tasks in your article. Remember that you are writing for teens who might not know much about engineering.
- Identify the criteria you tested.
- Identify the constraints the engineers had to work with.
- Explain why constraints make a difference in a product.
- Identify the decisions you think the engineers made.
- Describe how you tested the cereals.
- Include a ratings table.
- Summarize the cereals’ rankings.
- Draw up to two pictures or diagrams (optional).
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Exchange articles with a teammate. Provide at least two comments about your teammate’s article as a form of feedback. Write the comments on sticky notes. Place the sticky notes on the article near where you are addressing the feedback. Hint
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Return the article to your teammate. Carefully consider all of the feedback about your article. Make any revisions with a different-colored pen or pencil. If you do not accept some of your teammate’s advice, explain why on the sticky note. Hint
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Present or turn in your article as your teacher directs.
Activity Overview
In the Elaborate activity, students tested breakfast cereals. They used the information they learned in the chapter to come up with criteria, constraints, definitions, ways to test the cereal, and a ratings guide. Now, in Teen Consumer Magazine, the Evaluate activity, they will put all the information together in an article for a fictitious consumer magazine.
Before You Teach
Materials
For the entire class:
- sticky notes
- pens or pencils of different colors
As You Teach
Outcomes and Indicators of Success
By the end of this activity, students will
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demonstrate their ability to design a scientific investigation.
They will demonstrate their ability by writing an article that shows how they tested breakfast cereals.
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demonstrate their understanding of criteria and constraints.
They will show their understanding by
- describing the criteria they tested
- explaining why constraints make a difference in a product
- describing the constraints engineers had to work with.
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demonstrate their ability to create a data table.
They will show their ability by
- creating a data table that shows their rankings of the cereal
- writing a summary of their results that explains the table.
Strategies
Getting Started
Remind students of the tests they did on the breakfast cereal along with the criteria, constraints, and rankings they already have in their technology notebooks. Then, remind them that the last activity started with a call for articles. In this activity, they will write the article to submit to the consumer magazine.
Process and Procedure
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Have students read the Elaborate activity’s Call for Articles again to remind them why they are writing an article. Then, go over each task listed. This list shows information that should be included in the article. Base your expectations for the article on students’ experience and abilities. For example, some students will be able to write most or all of the article as continuous prose and include each item. Other students may need to create different sections within the article with subheads for each item.
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Once students have written their articles, they should exchange them with a teammate’s article and provide advice. Make sure students understand how to give good feedback, as described in the hint. Listing phrases like “nice job,” “good colors,” “liked your article,” or “I got the same results” does not help students improve their work. Help students with their feedback if needed so that they can provide good feedback. Questions like, “Was everything completely clear to you?” and “Did you feel like you needed more information about anything?” will help students provide better feedback.
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Give students time to carefully consider their feedback. Giving them time and not rushing through this step helps emphasize the importance of considering the advice from peers. Remind students that they should either take the advice and make changes in a different-colored pen or pencil or explain on the corresponding sticky note why they did not take the advice. Make sure students read the hint behind the link to help them understand the reason for this step and that they do not necessarily have to take the teammate’s advice.
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Decide whether you would like students to turn their articles in to you or post or present them in some other way. Evaluate activities serve as the summative assessment for chapters. Through this article, you will be able to determine whether your students have mastered the concepts listed in the outcomes and indicators of other activities. If students do not seem to have an understanding of some concepts, use this information to inform your teaching and go back to those concepts.