Beavers in London: Thinking Classroom version
Beavers in London: Thinking Classroom version
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Short description
Our capital has been rewilded - with beavers. Eologists hope they will help reduce flood risks. But not everyone supports their arrival.
In this activity, students use evidence collected from a previous beaver rewilding project to persuade people they will have a positive effect on the environment. Students can peer or self-assess their work using the rubric.
The new version integrates practices from Peter Liljedahl's Thinking Classroom, with a 3-part structure to support student thinking in collaborative groups:
- CARE: Students are introduced to the issue and posed a question
- KNOW: Students review the prior knowledge they will need to complete the task
- DO: Students work in groups to analyse data that they can use as evidence
Curriculum link
- Interdependence (Blueprint year 7)
- Weigh evidence to support a claim
Running Notes
Slide 2: Display the news story and click on the link to show the video clip. Show them a comment from someone against the rewilding of beavers and the question the students will be answering – ‘will beavers have a positive impact on the environment in London or not?’
Slide 3: Set the tasks. Clicking on the slide images will allow you to zoom in. Give pairs/small groups a copy of SS1. Some groups may also have SS2. The evidence on this sheet is more challenging to interpret. Ask students to look through the evidence and decide if it supports beaver rewilding in London, or not. Go through the evidence with the class.
Ask students to use this evidence to write an argument persuading people that rewilding beavers in London is a good idea. They should present their answers as claim, evidence, reasoning.
Weblinks
CONNECT
This activity is adapted from the Connect project, funded by the European Commission.
This is a short version of a longer activity called Rewilding, which offers more scientific knowledge and skills learning opportunities, activities to carry out at home with family members and scientist interaction.
Download other Connect activities here: https://shop.masteryscience.com/collections/connect
Q&A
For the Year 7 Mastery Practice book:
For the Y9/GCSE Mastery Practice Book:
It was written to help year 7 students learn to transfer the scientific knowledge to unfamiliar situation. It can also be used by students in other years to improve their understanding of the fundamental concepts. Learning to apply is what will give students access to the 60% of marks at GCSE that demand more than recalling content. The book uses a research-based approach to teach students how to solve different types of problems.
The Practice Book has a chapter on each unit in the year 7 curriculum, based on a 5-year curriculum and AQA's KS3 Science Syllabus. Download the sample material to see exactly what concepts and types of problems are included.
The first strategy studente need to learn is to evaluate the problem and what knowledge is needed to solve it. 'Detect' simulates how an expert looks at a question. They make sense of the situation, look beyond the superficial details to find the deep structure This allows them to recognise this as an example of a problem type they have seen before, and recall the organised information they need to solve - key concepts. It ensures that students avoid their inclination to just look at the keywords, and dive in risking misunderstanding the situation. Detect is broken down into smaller steps, usually: draw a diagram, show values, identify unknown, decide the concept
This encourages students to bring into their working memory all their existing knowledge, externalise it on paper (to reduce working memory demands), and then home in on what's relevant to solving the problem.
The third stage of the problem solving strategy is the actual solution process using the knowledge from Recall.The Solve starts by showing how to use the knowledge from Recall and models a step by step process of moving towards a solution for the problem.We teach students how to write answers scientifically, using a variety of structures like claim-evidence-reasoning, and problem-solution, and cause-effect.
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