Reflective Teaching Assignment

Part 1: To be completed before you teach your lesson

Part 1a: Lesson Plan Analysis Task

Teachers possess ideas about effective science teaching and they use those ideas to determine
whether curriculum materials have those characteristics. To do a good job at analyzing
curriculum materials, you need to have some criteria by which you can judge the materials. In
this part of the assignment, you will analyze your lesson plan with regard to 3 criteria of your
own choosing. You can select criteria that you’ve recently learned about in class or select your
own criteria.

Use the following questions to guide your description and use of the criteria in your analysis.

For each criterion, answer the following questions:

1. What criterion did you choose?
2. Why did you choose to use this criterion in your analysis?
3. What are the indicators for this criterion? (Identifying indicators will help you identify
important characteristics of the criterion that you can use to guide your analysis.)
4. For each indicator: Does the lesson plan meet the indicator? Explain why you think this
and provide examples from the lesson plan to support your ideas. For the weaknesses you
identify, what specific changes could you make to the lesson to better meet the indicator?

Criterion #1
Lesson provides opportunities for students to reconsider their knowledge of scientific
concepts- I chose this criterion because first graders tend to have a very concrete knowledge of
the world and this knowledge needs to be challenged in order for students to grow and learn
more. Some indicators for this criterion might be the topic of the lesson, whether it focuses on
abstract or concrete ideas. Also, I think the activity in a lesson could be an indicator for this
criterion because if students are given the opportunity to do an investigation that gives them
evidence of a new scientific idea they are more likely to believe it. This lesson plan does meet
this criterion because it is about water in the air, which is an abstract concept for younger
students. Also, this lesson has students looking at water evaporating, which gives students
evidence of this scientific concept.

Criterion #2
Lesson engages students with scientifically oriented questions- This criterion is important
because all students need to be given an opportunity to think and explain scientific concepts.
These questions should ask for higher-level thinking, not just simply recall from a textbook.
There could be several indicators for this criterion including a discussion segment before or
after a lesson. However, within a discussion another indicator would be the type of questions a
teacher plans to ask. These questions include asking for students to use evidence in their
answer, using a real world example, or designing an experiment. I think this lesson has the
possibility to fulfill this criterion because there are planned discussions before and after the
lesson. However, the questions the teacher asks during these discussions are the real indicators
to fulfill this criterion.

Criterion #3
Accessibility of the lesson- I chose this criterion because I think it’s important for a lesson to
have the ability to be used in many different types of situations. Some classrooms have more
materials than others, and a lesson should be able to work in any type of situation. The
indicators for this lesson would be the resources and activities involved in the lesson. This
lesson assumes that the classroom has blackboard and a griddle or rice cooker in order to make
steam. I decided that this lesson did not meet this criterion because my classroom did not have
a blackboard and no way to make steam so it was not very accessible in the classroom. My CT
found a small slate to use and she brought in a rice cooker to use. However, without going
through the trouble to find these resources the lesson would not have been successful.

Part 1b: Revised Lesson Plan

Title of Lesson: Water In The Air

    

Grade level: 1
   

Length of lesson: 30 minutes

   

Overview:
- Provide a short description of the lesson:
Students will explore the unfamiliar idea that water can be a part of the air as an invisible gas
called water vapor. Students will be introduced to the concepts of evaporation and water vapor
by seeing liquid water move into the air by watching steam and also a wet chalkboard dry.

Learning Goals:
- What do you want students to know and be able to explain at the end of this lesson?
- What do you want students to be able to do (with regard to inquiry)?
1. Students will consider the explanation that water is in the air in the form of water vapor.
2. Students will use the evidence from their investigation to form answers to discussion
questions and apply their ideas to the investigation question: Is there water in the air?

Connections to Standards/ Benchmarks/ Curriculum:

List the standards as written in the Michigan Curriculum Framework (or the Science Grade Level Content
Expectations document, which clarifies the MCF), National Science Education Standards, or AAAS Benchmarks.
Write down what chapter, section, and grade level you drew the standard from, in addition to the source itself.
From the grade level content expectations:
1. S.IR.01.07 Communicate and present findings of observations.
2. S.IR.01.11 Demonstrate scientific concepts through various illustrations, performances,
models, exhibits, and activities.
3. P.PM.01.3 Matter exists in several different states: solids, liquids and gases. Each state of
matter has unique physical properties. Gases are easily compressed but liquids and solids do
not compress easily. Solids have their own particular shapes, but liquids and gases take the
shape of the container.

Context of Lesson:
How does the lesson fit within the unit as a whole?
This is lesson 12, which is part of the unit on weather in the Science Companion series
supported by the Ann Arbor public schools. In prior lessons students have explored properties
of ice and liquid water. In the next lesson students will explore water coming out of the air.
This lesson fits in well with the sequence of explorations and students will have a lot of prior
knowledge of water from the previous lessons.

Materials:
- Weather workbook for all students (given with curriculum materials) using page 14 for this
lesson
- Extra worksheet (22 copies) to use while watching the steam
- Rice cooker and water
- Small chalkboard slate
- Watercolor paintings (done previously in class)

Students’ Ideas:
- What ideas should students understand before beginning the lesson?
- What potential alternative ideas might students hold?
Students should have some experience with water and its different states such as liquid, solid,
and gas. I think it would also be important for students to have some experience with inquiry-
based activities. A lot of the questions in the final discussion ask students to explain their
reasoning with evidence from what they saw during the exploration. This task can be hard for
students with no previous experience. Since the students are fairly young I expect that some
will have alternative ideas, for example, we can’t see water in the air so it must not be there.
Also, they might think that water dries from the paper and chalkboard because it goes into the
paper or the chalkboard rather than into the air.

Teaching Strategies: Intro

Think about the following questions as you describe how you will introduce the lesson:
- How will you connect this lesson to the previous one?
- What is your investigation question or problem for the lesson?
- How will you elicit students’ existing ideas?
At the beginning of my lesson I will make a connection previous lessons by talking about the
watercolor paintings that they worked on in the days before. I will ask various questions like,
“How did you make these paintings?” and, “How are they different now than right after you were
done?” We’ll start talking that the water dried and where it could have gone. I will also connect
it to other lessons by saying that we are going to learn about water today, like we have learned
about water in past science lessons. These connections will hopefully get students thinking about
water and my investigation question.

My investigation question for the lesson is: Is there water in the air?

I will elicit students’ existing ideas and to also assess their misconceptions about water by doing a
short activity with a wet piece of chalkboard. In this activity I will lightly wet a piece of
chalkboard and have students write what they see as they watch it dry. This worksheet is on page
14 of their weather notebook. After they have finished writing I will ask: “Where did the water
go?” This will hopefully bring out some different types of responses and get students thinking
about the investigation question.

Teaching Strategies: Main Lesson

Think about the following questions as you describe the steps of the lesson:
- What will you do? What will your students do? Do not assume someone reading your lesson plan has access to the
original lesson plan! Be clear and complete.
- Do the activities support students in engaging in scientific inquiry? How will you help students make predictions?
Collect data and make observations? Look for patterns in data? Build evidence-based explanations?
- What will you do to manage materials/movement around the classroom/transitions?
- Do the activities support students of all achievement levels? What will students do who finish an activity early?
Who do not finish?
After completing the introduction to my lesson the students will already by sitting in front of me
on the carpet. The first thing that I plan to do is pose my investigation question for the lesson,
which is: Is there water in the air? I will not take any possible answers to this question at that
time, but I will encourage students to think about this question as we do the investigation. Next, I
will have students move out and form a circle around the carpet facing inside so there is a big
space in the middle. I plan to move a table from the same area of the room into the middle of the
circle so that everyone can see. I will place the rice cooker on top of the table and plug it into an
outlet below the whiteboard. Before the lesson even starts I will plug in the rice cooker so it will
be already boiling when we are ready to do the investigation. It will be important for me to say a
little about safety before we start the investigation because the rice cooker will be very hot and I
want to make sure students know they should get too close or touch it. After this is all set up with
the top still on the rice cooker I will pass out the worksheet I have made. When I remove the lid I
will give the students ten minutes to fill out the first two questions of the worksheet. I will read
the questions aloud so students who many not be proficient in reading can still understand the
activity. After finishing the first and second question on the worksheet students will write their
answer to the third question. Also, at the end of the activity I will introduce the term evaporate
and water vapor so that students will hopefully be able to use any apply the terms in the final
discussion.

I think this activity does allow students to engage in scientific inquiry. The students are exploring
a phenomenon with little constraint. The worksheet I made asks students to record their
observations from the experiment and make predictions on what happens to the water once it is
already in the air. I will not tell students that their answers are right or wrong I simply want them
to explore different activities that might allow them to see that water is in the air. I thought about
asking students to make predictions but I felt like this would be a waste of time because most
students have seen steam while their parents are cooking dinner. Also, I wanted them to see the
steam from the rice cooker first without any introduction to the activity. Most of the evidence-
based explanations will come during the wrap up discussion following this main activity.

There will not be many management issues during my lesson except for the movement from a
crowd on the carpet to a circle around a table. I can see that getting the table in the middle of the
circle might take some time but I only have one rice cooker and I feel like everyone needs to be
able to see it. Students will fill out the worksheets while sitting in the circle so there should not
be any management issues with movement.

Throughout the year my students have been working on adding extra details to a story or picture
if they think they are finished early. I made this extra worksheet so that students would only be
looking at the steam with nothing to work on. I made enough space underneath each question so
that students who can easily form their ideas can write more than students who take more time.
Therefore, I hope that there will not be an issue with students finishing before others.

Teaching Strategies: Wrap-up

Think about the following questions as you describe how you will close the lesson:
- What explanations will your students construct?
- How will you help students connect their explanations to the investigation question?
- What specific questions will you ask students to help them interpret their in-class experiences and connect them to
scientific ideas and their own ideas about the phenomena? What questions will you ask to help students progress
from their initial ideas and predictions elicited at the beginning of the lesson?
- How will you help students connect to previous and subsequent science lessons?
To wrap up my lesson I will have a final discussion with the students while they are still sitting in a
circle on the carpet. My students will construct different explanations depending on the question
that is posed. I will have them give some possible explanations for the third question on their
worksheet first. I feel like talking about this question will give students who normally are fairly
quiet in class a chance to participate because they already will have written their ideas. I will also
have them construct their real world experiences to the concept towards the end of the discussion.
This will be a question that asks for a higher level of cognitive thinking so there will be a variety
of different explanations that I will ask students to construct.

At the end of the discussion I will ask the students to go back and look at the investigation
question. This time I will ask for students’ ideas and hopefully we can come to a consensus that
water is in the air. Although I don’t expect that all students will understand this abstract concept I
want students to hear and consider this possible explanation that water is in the air.

I plan to ask these questions during the final discussion. Based on the responses questions may
need to be changed so that students will be able to get to the explanation that water is in the air.
- What did you observe during our investigation?
- What happens once the water is in the air?
- Can you think of any experiences you have had with evaporation?
- Go back to the investigation question: Can we answer it?
These questions, especially the third question where they have to apply the concept to their lives,
will help the students connect their initial ideas from the beginning of the lesson.
If I wrap up the lesson by saying something like, “So we have already learned about liquid water
and ice and now we have learned about water vapor as a gas and so we will keep learning more
about water in science.” This is something simple, but I think it will help students remember a
little about what they have already learned and also a little preview of what will be coming in the
future.

Assessment:
- What evidence will you gather to let you know if your students achieved the learning goal(s)? How will you
collect this information?
- Does your assessment focus on understanding of key ideas and practices and require application of ideas?
- Are you able to assess each student’s understanding?
The main type of assessment that this lesson will include to check if students have achieved the
learning goals is the worksheet that they will work on while doing the investigation. If students
write that the water stays in the air, or anything about the water going into the air this will show
that the student has considered the explanation. Also, the responses during the closing discussion
will help me to understand if students have considered that water is in the air. This discussion
will also help to know if students are able to connect their observations to answer the
investigation question. The worksheet will be collected at the end of the lesson as students are
moving back to their desks.

I believe that my assessment does focus on the key ideas in the investigation because it asks
students to draw and write their observations. This assessment also asks application of these
ideas because it asks students to think what happens to the water once it is in the air. This
question takes their observations to the next step, which will hopefully help the students get
closer to answering the investigation question.

I am able to assess each student’s understanding because each student will work on the worksheet
while the investigation is going on. I will also work to get each student to participate in the
discussion at the end of the lesson, which will help to gauge their understanding in another way.

Part 1c: Lesson Plan Rationale

I. Use of Science Curriculum Materials

1. Which of the following best characterizes how you started planning for this lesson?
I had a general idea of the topic I wanted to cover but no materials yet
I had an idea for a student activity or investigation and built a lesson plan around that.
✘ I had an existing lesson plan that I planned on using
Other

2. How explicit was your learning goal before you started developing your lesson?
Very explicit (I knew specifically what I wanted by students to learn and how they would
demonstrate their understanding)
✘ Somewhat explicit (I knew specifically what I wanted by students to learn)
Not very explicit (I had identified specific parts of a scientific concept I wanted my lesson
to address but wasn’t sure about exactly what I wanted students to learn)
I really didn’t have a learning goal at first (I had a general sense of what scientific
 concept(s) I wanted my lesson to address but wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted students
to learn)

3. What existing lesson plans, curriculum materials, and other resources did you use to develop
your lesson? Please list them here.
Name/Title Type of Resource Source Additional Information
Take Me To Existing Lesson My CT and/or From FOSS science
Ex
Your Liter plan placement classroom curriculum
Water goes into Existing lesson
1. My CT
the air plan
Is there water  Made by me
2. Worksheet
in the air 
3.
4.
5.

a. What did you like about features of the curriculum materials you used? What didn’t you
like? Why?
b. Were they good choices for developing an inquiry-oriented lesson? Why or why not?
c. What other factors did you have to consider in using these resources?

a) I liked features in the original lesson plan because the actual activity had the potential to be
inquiry oriented. The students were to watch steam and consider that the water went into the air.
I also liked the introduction to the activity where students watched water dry on paper and a
chalkboard. These activities let students explore different explanations and also see in a concrete
way that the water did not go into the paper. Students can see this by feeling where the paper is
ripped. I didn’t like that there was only one page in the workbook for students to do. I wanted
them to write their initial ideas during the introductory activities and also have a chance to write
their observations during the investigation.
b) Yes, I think the choices were good for developing an inquiry-based lesson because the activity
lends itself well to inquiry-oriented learning. The activity is focused on students observing and
making explanations to questions based on evidence from the investigation. Depending on the
questions that the teacher asks during the final discussion the lesson could be a good example of
inquiry learning. This lesson could be a lot more inquiry oriented if students were designing their
own investigations and questions, however, I feel like this would be a lot harder to direct with
first grade students especially when they aren’t used to doing this much inquiry learning. Another
factor to consider is that Ann Arbor is using a new science curriculum this year and teachers are
sticking to it so they can learn more about it. This would limit me from making too many
changes to the lesson.
c) In using these curriculum materials I have to think about how to direct the opening and final
discussions. The lesson gives teacher some ideas about what to talk about but do not really give
many specific questions to ask the students. These questions also do not ask the student to apply
the concept to their lives or use evidence to explain their explanations. I also need to consider
what students are doing during each portion of the lesson to make sure it will run smoothly and
students will always be doing something. With younger students it is hard to ask students to sit
and watch because they will inevitable be off task after only a few minutes.
II. Adapting Science Curriculum Materials

4. Please think about each of the changes you made to your lesson. List each one and briefly
describe it. Then, for each change you made, please answer the following:
a. How did this change improve upon what was already in the existing lesson?
b. Did this change make your lesson more or less inquiry-oriented? If so, how?
c. What other factors did you consider in making this change?

1. In the introduction to the lesson I changed the paper activity to simply discussing their
watercolor paintings from the previous week.
a) I felt like this change made the lesson much easier because there weren’t all of the management
issues involved with having each student make their own paintings. There is also the possibility
that some students will put too much water on their paper and so we won’t even have the time to
see it dry. I think that students will gain the same understanding from talking about the
watercolor paintings as making their own water paintings again.
b) I don’t think this makes the lesson more of less inquiry based because students are still talking
about a phenomenon and using an evidence to try to explain it. They have essentially already
done the same activity and it’s not necessary to use class time to do it again.
c) I don’t think I considered any other factors in making this change.

2. I did not use the word disappear at any point in my explanations of the investigation or when I
introduced the terms evaporate and water vapor.
a) I think this change improved my lesson because I feel that using the term disappear is only
adding to students’ misconceptions. Since I want students to come away with the idea that the
water moves into the air rather than disappearing it doesn’t make sense to use this term to
describe the process.
b) I don’t think this change had any affect on the level of inquiry in the lesson. There is still the
same amount of inquiry in my lesson because the investigation and questions are still the same. I
only made this change so that students would not think that their misconceptions are correct.
c) When making this change I had to think of another way to word the phenomenon. So, instead
of saying disappear I said move or something else that would fit in the sentence. For example,
the last question on the worksheet I made is “What happens to the water once it is in the air?”
rather than something like, “Where does the water go when it disappears?”

3. I added a worksheet for students to complete during the investigation.

a) This change improved my lesson because it helped with management and it also gave the
lesson a form of assessment for each student. My students needed something to do while
watching the steam rise out of the boiling water so making a worksheet would help to keep
students thinking about the science and also keep them from talking to their neighbor. It’s also
important to be able to assess where all of your students’ understanding is at the end of a lesson so
the addition of this worksheet will help to know if students are getting the concept.
b) I feel like this change made my lesson more inquiry based because it made the students feel
more connected to the science learning. Instead of just looking at steam they were practicing
being a scientist and writing down their observations. It is also more inquiry based because the
questions help give students evidence to use in answering the investigation question.
c) I don’t think I considered any other factors when making this change.

4. I added an investigation question to the beginning of the lesson.

a) This change helps to improve upon what is already in the lesson because it helps students to
focus their learning during the investigation. I think that if students know what they should be
thinking about they are more likely going to find evidence in the activity to support their learning.
I also feel like posing an investigation question will give the activity more of a purpose for the
students and they will be thinking more critically during the activity in an effort to answer the
investigation question.
b) This change makes the lesson more inquiry based because an investigation question is one of
the important characteristics of an inquiry learning approach. By posing this question I know that
my students will be engaging in scientifically oriented questions, which is an essential feature to
classroom inquiry.
c) One factor that I had to consider was how broad to make the investigation question. I wanted it
to be a key part of the learning goal but I also wanted students to see the connection to the
investigation. I decided to use the question: “Is there water in the air?” because it connects well
with my first learning goal and it is fairly simple so I can assume that all students will be able to
understand it.

5. How inquiry-oriented do you think your lesson is?

Very inquiry-oriented Not very inquiry-oriented
✘ Somewhat inquiry-oriented Not at all inquiry-oriented

Please explain your answer to question #5. Why do you think your lesson was or wasn’t
inquiry-oriented?

I think my lesson is somewhat inquiry oriented because it involves many of the essential features
of classroom inquiry, but not all of them. I feel like my lesson engages learners in scientifically
oriented questions because during the discussions both before and after the lesson students are
asked questions based on the investigation. However, there is no investigation question in the
original lesson plan, which is usually a key feature to an inquiry approach. This lesson also has
students try to answer the scientifically oriented questions using evidence from the investigation.
The lesson tells the teacher to have students answer these questions, so they are communicating
their thoughts about science. However, this lesson does not have students reflecting or evaluating
their responses, which is another key component in inquiry-based learning. Since this is not
included in the lesson my original lesson plan is only somewhat inquiry-oriented.

Part 2: To be completed after you teach your lesson

Part 2a. Reflective Teaching Assignment Post-enactment Reflective Journal

Now that you’ve taught your lesson, please reflect your lesson enactment in the box below.
We’ve specifically included some questions to help you think about teaching science as inquiry
and using science curriculum materials to help you do so, our two big goals for the semester.
1. How did it go? What went well? What didn't go so well? Were the changes that you
 made to your lesson before enacting it effective? Why or why not?
2. Did your students meet your learning goals? Analyze your students' work and look for
things they wrote that show alternative ideas that changed or lingered. Refer explicitly
to student work to make evidence-based assertions about their learning.
3. How did your enacted lesson compare to the lesson you planned? Did anything go
differently than you expected? If so, please describe how. (Please refer back to specific
portions of your lesson plan)
4. What did you learn from this experience? How did this experience influence your
understanding of inquiry-oriented science teaching and factors you need to consider in
teaching science as inquiry?
5. Based on what you learned from this experience, would you further modify this lesson?
If so, how would you modify it for the next time you teach it?
• Would you use additional resources and/or science curriculum materials? If so,
describe them and talk about why.
• What additional changes, if any, would you make to your lesson? Why would
you make these changes?
6. Please feel free to address anything else you think is relevant.

1. I think my lesson went pretty well. Everything went smoothly and students were interested and
on-task throughout the whole lesson. I feel like the exploration of watching water vapor from a
steaming pot went really well because the students were all circled around the table making notes
on their worksheet. I think one change I made about making a worksheet to use during the
exploration was especially helpful for students to have something to do and also for me to track
their thinking. One part of the lesson that did not go so well was using their watercolor paintings
as an example of water moving into the air. I didn’t want to rip their paintings so I couldn’t give
them evidence that water was not inside the paper. Having the ability to show students that their
initial ideals are not true would have greatly helped them to overcome their misconceptions. The
investigation question I added seemed to help guide the lesson. In our final discussion I went
back to ask the students the investigation question and it was interesting to see how the students
had many different ideas than the beginning of the lesson.
2. I feel that my students fulfilled both of the learning goals I made for the lesson. I found that
my students were still thinking that the water disappeared or went into the paper at the end of the
lesson; however, there were many instances when we talked about the possibility that the water
could be moving into the air. Therefore, I know that my students at least considered the
explanation that the water moved into the air. Even though some students were not totally
convinced that the water moved into the air and based on the wording of my learning goal these
students still fulfilled the goal. Also, based on the final discussion and the worksheets the
students did during the last exploration I feel the second learning goal was met. Many students
commented that they could see the water moving into the air because of the cloud above the pot.
One student wrote, “The steam comes out of the pot. It disappears into the air.” Another students
wrote, “It is a pot with steam. It goes in the air from the pot.” There were many other students
responses that had other ideas about where the water went, but they all were looking at the pot
and explaining their reasoning. There were other explanations that came through in the students’
writing. For example, a few students wrote that they thought the water dried from the lights in
the classroom. Some wrote that it simply disappeared. I think my students did really well writing
their explanations given their limited experience with writing.
3. After enacting my lesson I feel like everything followed fairly closely with the plan I had
made. In the planned lesson I think the students were going to move from a circle around the pot
for the final discussion so that the students would be sitting in front of me on the rug. However,
while the lesson was going I found that it was going to take too much time and effort to change
the placement of the table. Plus, I would have been moving the table with a boiling pot of water
on it, which could have been a safety hazard if something accidentally spilled. I decided that it
might be helpful to have the final discussion with the pot still boiling on the table with the
students sitting in a circle around it so that they could see it while they were forming their
explanations. It also helped me to explain the concept of water vapor and evaporation to the
students with the pot in front of me. One other change I made during the lesson was at the end
of the final discussion. I didn’t introduce the concept of humidity as an example of water in the
air as I had planned. I talked with my CT before doing my lesson and she commented that most
students haven’t had enough experience with weather and different climates and so talking about
humidity might make some students more confused. These two changes are the only parts of the
enacted lesson that were different from the lesson I planned.
4. During this lesson I learned how much students cling to their initial ideas. It’s very hard to
change their misconceptions in one lesson. It helps to have evidence against their beliefs and
still some students will hang on to their ideas. During the lesson I had the students explore
different evidence for water moving into the air and some still did not overcome their
misconceptions. During the lesson I also saw first hand how long real inquiry learning takes. If I
were teaching the class by myself I know that students would have needed more time and
evidence to decide to change their ideas. In class we have seen many different lessons that take
multiple days for students to reconsider their ideas. Since this topic is fairly abstract and hard to
visualize, my students probably needed more time to fully understand the concept. I also learned
that it is hard, as a teacher, to not just give the students the answers. Sometimes students are
having trouble understanding a concept and as a teacher you want to automatically help them,
however, sometimes it can be better for students to reach an understanding on their own. While I
did do a small explanation at the end of the discussion I really tried to give students the freedom
to explore and explain their ideas. I found myself wanting to give them the right answer instead
of guiding them to find it on their own. I learned a lot about this aspect of inquiry-based learning
when I was confronted with many misconceptions.
5. There are a few changes that I would make to my lesson plan to try to present the concept of
water in the air in a different way to make it more clear to some students. I think my lesson ran
very smoothly except that some students still thought that the water disappeared rather than
stayed in the air. Since they came back with many of the same misconceptions that they had at
the beginning I think it would be helpful to change one activity that I did and add another to give
them another form of evidence that water is in the air. One change that I would make is to do put
water on a piece of construction paper and at the end of the lesson go back and rip the paper so
the students can see that there is not water in the middle of the paper. We talked about their
watercolor paintings instead of actually wetting a piece of paper and letting it dry. Having the
ability to rip the paper and have students feel that there is no water inside the paper would be
another form of evidence that water could be in the air. In the watercolor discussion I was
hesitant to rip their art, so they didn’t get to experience the evidence that would have helped in
their understanding. The other change I would make to my lesson is to use another type of
curriculum material to help guide the students’ thinking. I don’t have a certain book in mind, but
it would have been helpful if there were certain books for young readers that could help explain
this topic. After the activity we could have looked through this book and it would have been
another source of information and evidence that water is in the air. These are two changes that I
would make to my lesson if I could do it again. I didn’t have any problems with management
during my lesson so I would not make any further changes in that area.