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WATER.CHANGES.EVERYTHING.

WATER.CHANGES.EVERYTHING.
The title to our inquiry lesson was Water Changes Everything. This title was so powerful and meaningful to my group and I. Tuesday night we were scrambling and brainstorming an idea for our inquiry lesson. We had nothing. Couldn't think of anything. Were completely exhausted and brain dead. It was 2am and we were about to go to bed and try again tomorrow. Until... Kim found this life-changing video on youtube. This video changed everything. Suddenly, we had an idea for our inquiry lesson. We were going to begin with this amazing video. We were going to take a students question from our previous lesson, and make it the basis of this lesson. A student asked us "why does it matter if South Africa is having a water crisis? How does this effect us in the US? We are safe, we have clean water, what does it matter? Why should we care? Kim & Amanda and I had no response for the student. We were so caught off guard. But after finding this video and creating this lesson we would have an answer to the students question. We began the lesson by showing the students the video shown above. It was so powerful. The students were silent while watching. Their faces looked as if they were in amazement. My colleagues and I couldn't help but smile. We were so in love with this life-changing video as well. Once we stopped the video we asked the students to reflect on what they thought. The one student, who we based this whole lesson off of responded. She said that she had no idea that water could effect education, poverty, and lives. The students told us that they were unaware of the effects not having water could put upon us humans. The question posed was What can we do to help those in need, specifically zoning in on Cape Town, South Africa.
Click here to view our inquiry lesson presentation!
We created a WebQuest for our inquiry lesson. This WebQuest allowed the students to explore Cape Town, South Africa and their water crisis. To begin our lesson we started with a Kahoot to activate prior knowledge on our previous lesson. Unfourtently the Kahoot wasn't cooperating. We decided to activate prior knowledge vocally and ask them the questions that were supposed be asked in the Kahoot. After the Kahoot we reviewed our classroom rules and briefly went over the scientific method. After that, we introduced the water crisis WebQuest. The students worked side by side on their own iPads. They had a sheet that corresponded to their online WebQuest to record their answers in. The students really seemed to enjoy this WebQuest. They loved working on the iPads. After the WebQuest we opened a discussion to the class about Newburgh and the water issue they are going through. We showed the students a quick video exploring Newburgh and the water problem we have here with contaminated water. The reactions of the students were shocking. They had no idea that Newburgh was experiencing this problem. Some didn't care for it because they do not reside in Newburgh. We explained to the students that we weren't experiencing a drought but that our water was contaminated. The Newburgh officials are working on fixing this problem. We are getting our water from elsewhere, it is not contaminated anymore. But can contamination effect our sensory garden? That was the question posed to the 4th grade. The fourth graders explained to us that they learned so much and had no clue this was going on in their very own Newburgh. The students learned so much. They learned ways they could help Cape Town by donating, conserving water. Their teacher Mrs. Hoag took this issue into her own hands. She explained that they are collecting water bottles and getting money for them, and then finding a cooperation to donate the money to that will help specifically Cape Town. This was great news!!!! We ended our lesson with an independent practice. The students had the task to write to the people of Cape Town. 
I really enjoyed teaching this lesson. The students really cared about the water crisis. It was so rewarding to see that they took matters into their own hands as a class and are going to be helping Cape Town! I couldn't have done this without my colleagues Kim and Amanda! WE DID IT!!!!!


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