Explore a Model UDL Lesson Plan

 [ Back to Model Lessons ]

Click on the UDL Connections button to see how UDL principles have been integrated.

Fractals, An Inquiry: Day 4


Lesson Overview | Unit Description | Lesson Description for Day | State Standards
Goals | Methods | Wrap-Up | Assessment | Materials

Lesson Overview

Title: Fractals, An Inquiry: Day 4
Author: CAST
Subject: Science
Grade Level(s): 6–8
Back to Top

Unit Description

This unit is designed as a UDL approach to supporting student understanding of scientific inquiry. Students experience first-hand each step in the inquiry process and how the steps systematically build toward understanding. A simple art activity that involves creating fractals with paint serves as the context for the inquiry. By situating an introduction to inquiry in art, students who might feel reluctant or incompetent in science have an alternative environment for engaging in the inquiry process. Exploring scientific inquiry through art is also a way to enable students to experience the inquiry process as a natural, sometimes spontaneous process that is intrinsic to many learning experiences.

Fractals, intriguing in their complexity and beauty, have been charted mathematically, and serve as the connection for the inquiry. By experimenting with the effects of various art media on the formation of fractals, such as the thickness of paint or types of paper used to make them, students' initial encounter with the inquiry process occurs in a non-threatening, intuitive way, so they will arrive at an understanding of the inquiry process inductively.

Back to Top

Lesson Description for Day

In today's activities, students will put their growing understanding of the scientific inquiry process to work as they use paint to implement their plans to experiment with how changing one aspect of the fractal making process influences their appearance.

Back to Top

State Standards

Florida Sunshine State Standards:
Standard 1:
The student uses the scientific processes and habits of mind to solve problems. (SC.H.1.3)
Standard 2:
The student understands that most natural events occur in comprehensible, consistent patterns. (SC.H.2.3)
1. Recognizes that patterns exist within and across systems

California State Standards:
Investigation and Experimentation
Scientific progress is made by asking meaningful questions and conducting careful investigations. As a basis for understanding this concept and addressing the content in the other three strands, students should develop their own questions and perform investigations.

Back to Top

Goals

Unit Goals:
  1. Students will gain an understanding of the process of scientific inquiry.
  2. Students will gain independence in conducting and reporting on their own inquiries.
  3. Students will become aware that scientific inquiries can happen anywhere, and are a natural part of exploring the world.

Lesson Goals:

Students will gain independence in applying their understanding of the scientific inquiry process to an experiment that tests how changing one variable in the fractal-making process affects their appearance.

Assess Student Perceptions of Progress:
Have students do a quick write or record, in which they describe what additional supports would help them be independent in planning and conducting an inquiry.

Back to Top

Methods

Anticipatory Set:

None in this lesson.


Introduce and Model New Knowledge:

None in this lesson.


Provide Guided Practice:

None in this lesson.


Provide Independent Practice:

1. Experiment:
Time Frame: 30 minutes

Following the experimental design they planned yesterday, have students test their questions. Students should repeat their trials as often as time allows. With each trial, students must record what they did in detail and what they observed. Item 3 on the Inquiry Organizer provides space for this. Students should also use any chart they designed themselves for tracking data.

2. Reflect and Draw Conclusions:
Time Frame: 10 minutes

Have partners work together to read over their observations, consider them, and draw conclusions.

Scaffold Support as Needed:
If students have trouble generating conclusions, offer a model, such as the following Think Aloud:

My Experiment: I wanted to find out what happened to the fractal pattern I originally made when I used really thin paper. I selected the tracing paper, and using the same paint and brush that I used originally, I brushed the paint on the tracing paper, applied the same amount of pressure, and pulled the papers apart with the same speed as my original design. I repeated this three times.

My Observations: I observed that the overall shape of the fractal stayed the same, but the finer details became blurry.

My Conclusion: I concluded that thinner paper interferes with the ability to create finer-detail in the fractal.

Students should record their conclusions in their Inquiry Organizers.

3. Plan New Inquiries:
Time Frame: 5 minutes

Quick Write: Have students write about what new questions their experiments raised, and what they want to investigate further.

Back to Top

Wrap-Up

Debrief:
Time Frame: 5 minutes

Have volunteers share the conclusions they drew with the rest of the class. Help them consider how the introduction of one change in the fractal-making process (variable) influenced the outcomes they observed. Also help them qualify whether the change they observed was consistent across all three of their trials.

Back to Top

Assessment

Formative/Ongoing Assessment:

Participate actively in the small group experiments and discussions, so that you will be able to note which students still need extra support in understanding the inquiry process, which are on track to gaining independence, and which need additional challenges.


Summative/End Of Lesson Assessment:

Self-Assessment:
Have students fill-out the attached self-assessment checklist. Study their responses in order to decide who needs extra support or new challenges. If there are discrepancies between what students report and your observations of their learning, hold a mini-conference with those students in order to get additional information about their progress.

Back to Top

Materials

Other Resources
Back to Top

Print

UDL Connections
UDL Connection
UDL Feature:

Recognition Network – Represent information in multiple media and formats (e.g., text version of book, online or digital resources).

Listen

UDL Reflection:

By situating scientific inquiry in a different learning context, namely art, I'm hoping to capture a greater variety of learners. Since the art component to this lesson doesn't require generating a skilled artistic product, students with less background knowledge of the scientific method will hopefully have a greater comfort level when learning about it for the first time.

Listen

Note: If you do not get sound when you click on the audio Listen button within a UDL connection, simply close and reopen the UDL Connection, and click on the audio Listen button again.

UDL Connections
UDL Connection
UDL Feature:

Affective Network – Offer choices of content and tools (e.g., choice of books to study literature).

Strategic Network – Provide novel problems to solve (e.g., unique problems outside the initial instructional set to promote generalization and transfer).

Listen

UDL Reflection:

Students will utilize the novelty of art media in order to conduct an inquiry into fractals. In addition, the experimental question they raise is one of their own choosing, and hopefully this will enhance their motivation. – I don't believe that is what is meant by novel problems to solve.

Finally, each day has built on itself in terms of expectations of students for independently engaging in the inquiry process. In addition, within each lesson, there is flexibility in how teachers lead students toward independence.

Listen

Note: If you do not get sound when you click on the audio Listen button within a UDL connection, simply close and reopen the UDL Connection, and click on the audio Listen button again.

UDL Connections
UDL Connection
UDL Feature:

Affective Network – Provide adjustable levels of challenge: (e.g., range of materials at different reading difficulties).

Listen

UDL Reflection:

As students take ownership in identifying what resources and support they personally need to be successful, we become partners in regulating and maximizing their success. Knowing their needs in this way also helps me decide on levels of challenge to provide.

Listen

Note: If you do not get sound when you click on the audio Listen button within a UDL connection, simply close and reopen the UDL Connection, and click on the audio Listen button again.

UDL Connections
UDL Connection
UDL Feature:

Affective Network – Provide adjustable levels of challenge: (e.g., range of materials at different reading difficulties).

Listen

UDL Reflection:

Although this segment of the lesson looks brief, it represents an example of teachers enabling students to reflect and, collaborate on generating understandings of critical relationships related to the findings of their inquiries. Doing this in heterogeneous groups means that students of different developmental levels can contribute to the discussion and offer varying perspectives and insights. A built-in process for offering adjustable levels of challenge is therefore in place, because students have the scaffold of the group to support them in generating their responses.

Listen

Note: If you do not get sound when you click on the audio Listen button within a UDL connection, simply close and reopen the UDL Connection, and click on the audio Listen button again.

UDL Connections
UDL Connection
UDL Feature:

Strategic Network – Provide ongoing, relevant feedback (e.g., questions and answers in classroom).

Listen

UDL Reflection:

Rotating among students and observing their responses to tasks enables me to provide them with immediate feedback, and make decisions about what instructional supports they need moving forward.

Listen

Note: If you do not get sound when you click on the audio Listen button within a UDL connection, simply close and reopen the UDL Connection, and click on the audio Listen button again.

UDL Connections
UDL Connection
UDL Feature:

Affective Network – Offer choices of learning context (option to work in study carrel v. open classroom, student use headphones).

Listen

UDL Reflection:

By having students take stock of their own progress, they continue to act as stake holders in their own learning. This is an essential aspect of scaffolding assessments away from always being teacher-driven, to students becoming independent in monitoring their own progress and taking the steps they need for achieving goals.

Listen

Note: If you do not get sound when you click on the audio Listen button within a UDL connection, simply close and reopen the UDL Connection, and click on the audio Listen button again.