The eighth graders started a new unit this week with the driving question-How is the Earth changing? They began their thinking by asking questions based upon three phenomena–images of Earth’s surface and damage from earthquakes, a video of earthquakes and analysis of volcano and earthquake locations on Earth. Yesterday, they began categorizing these questions in order to develop some big, overarching questions to help guide their learning. There was lots of excited chatter as students shared ideas and background knowledge, analyzed maps and developed a focus for this unit. Ask them about the questions they have!
I really liked how you changed it up from the last time you did this to include different media (graphs, photos, videos, maps, readings) for the students to analyze. That type of differentiation is really helpful to make sure all kids have the ability to learn and understand the information.