The inventors

Welcome to a new learning adventure in which we are going to improve our Sicence skills and our ICT ones. We are also going to learn some English skills. This project is about machines, what the different machines are and the history of inventions, and finally we will create our own invention.  We will try to do our best and to enjoy our learning process.

Tumisu. Invención (Public Domain)

Along this project we will work on machines. We will start learning about what a simple machine is. Then we are going to learn about the history of inventions. Finally we are going to become an inventor and create an invention to change the world.  We are going to review some English contents like the past tense to explain history.

We are going to have different short tasks which we will join at the end in a great final product. We will work individually but also we will have pair and group working.

SCAFFOLDING

We also offer to the teacher a section of SCAFFOLDING to help him/her to support the language input along the unit. In this project scaffolding section deals about PAST TENSE. This will be useful to work with it. We can do it before the task "History about inventions". At this task we will use the past tense of the verbs to explain and tell about the history of important inventions

Itinerary

Open Educational Resource by EDIA Project - Cedec

CLIL Science. Primary Education.

Author: Javier Ramos Sancha

Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License 4.0

Breaking the ice

Thinking routine: Quick write / Quick draw

We are going to start a new project which is going to take us around two weeks of our Science lessons. To start with it we will do the following thinking routine to discover all the things we know about machines and how important they are for our daily lives.

The routine it is called Quick Write / Quick Draw (download in editable odt format, download in pdf).

Watch the video.

On the left part of the graphic organizer, let's draw a quick picture about what we have watched. 

On the right part of the graphic organizer, let's write a quick paragraph about what we have understood from the video. 

We will share our ideas with our mates.

Jack Hartmann Kids Music Channel. Six simple machines rap (Youtube license)

Thinking about my learning

One of the most important thing in our learning processes is to reflex about it to improve as much as we can. For that purpose we can create a Learning Diary in which we are going to reflect about how everything is going along this project. 

For the learning we can choose different options:

Create a shared document with our teacher. 

Use any tool like padlet to show our progress.

Use a notebook in which we can write.

Everyday at the end of each lesson we will write on your Learning Diary answering the following questions:

Date.

What have I done?

What problems did I have? How did I solve these problems?

What have I learnt?

How can I improve my learning for the next lesson?

Do I want to learn a bit more about something?

Our teacher will check it and give us some feedback to help our improvements. 

What is a simple machine?

A simple machine is...

Sometimes when we think about a machine we something really complex as a robot working in a factory or a computer dealing with lots of data. But there are devices very simple which are very helpful to work, the simple machine.

Simple Machines are basic mechanical devices for applying a force and doing work.

Harris County Public Library. . Learning levers with Lego (CC BY-NC-SA)

There are six different kind of simple machines:

Lever.

Pulley.

Inclined Plane.

Wedge

Wheel.

Screw. 

Simple machines in our daily lifes.

Duration:

2 lessons

Grouping:

Individual.

As we have learnt in the previous part simple machines are very important and helpful in our daily lives, despite we are not aware about it. At the following task we are going to create a mind map. It may include:

A definition of simple machines. 

The six simple machines and a short explanation about each one of them. 

A picture of this simple machine in our daily life. The students should take the pictures of them. 

The following video and links can help you to work on the mind map.

YouTube video: Simple and complex machines by Happy Learning English.

Ducksters: Physics  for kids - Simple machines. 

Cool Kids Facts: Simple Machine Facts. 

BiljaST. Mindmap (Public Domain)

Maybe we don't have enough ideas or resources to work with visual thinking. Here we have a great article about what is Visual Thinking and how to work on it. 

¿Qué es visual thinking? y para qué usarlo en educación by Garbiñe Larralde. 

Garbiñe Larralde. 10 Beneficios del Visual Thinking (CC BY-SA)

The best way of working with Visual Thinking is our pencil, our rubber, our colours and a piece of paper. But in case we want to work with any web tool we can use:

Popplet  --  Videotutorial:  Popplet. Herramientas digitales básicas para docentes inexpertos por Ingrid Mosquera

Bubbl.us -- Videotutorial: Bubbl.us. Herramientas digitales básicas para docentes inexpertos por Ingrid Mosquera.

Procreate for Ipad -- Videtotutorial Procreate for Begginer by Bardot Brush

Your work will be assessed by the Rubric to assess Mind maps (download in editable odt format, download in pdf).

Thinking about my learning

It is time to reflect about our learning today. Remind that everyday at the end of each lesson we will write on our Learning Diary asking the following questions:

Date.

What have I done?

What problems did I have? How did I solve these problems?

What have I learnt?

How can I improve my learning for the next lesson?

Do I want to learn a bit more about something?

Our teacher will check it and give us some feedback to help our improvements. 

Scaffolding: PAST TENSE

How to talk about the past

We have to modify a little bit the verbs to talk about the past, when the action have finished. When we are talking about the past we have two kind of verbs:

Regular verbs: we can form the past by adding -ed at the end of the verb.

Irregular verbs: the past form of the irregurlar verbs it is different in each of these verbs so we need to learn it. List of irregular verbs. 

The auxiliary verb which we used for creating the negative form and the questions is DID (past tense of the verb DO).

Let's learn a bit more about the past tense in the following video.

Easy English. What did you do? Simple past tense (Youtube license)

Let's practice it a bit

We will never learn the grammar better than practising it several times. The following links can help us to do it.

Agenda Web: Past simple - Exercises.

Learn English - British Council: Past simple - sentences. 

LiveWorksheets: Past Simple Regular and Irregular verbs. 

Writing time

Duration:

1 lesson

Grouping:

Individual

As we have learnt in the previous video and links we used it to talk about actions which have finished or moments we have lived.  In the following task we have to write about the most interesting or special moment we have ever lived. It is said, we have to write down about an anecdote we find interesting for our mates.

jarmoluk. Fotografías (Public Domain)

The composition should:

Have at least ten sentences. 

Be written in the past.

Try to be as clearer as everybody could imagine what happened.

Have the structure of Subject - Verb - Complements: I went to the beach with my parents. 

Your work will be assessed by using the Rubric to assess a text (download in editable odt format, download in pdf).

History about inventions

The importance of inventions

Along the history there were lots of people who have created diferent machines which we can called inventions. These machines have changed our life and improved it. For example:

The wheel. 

The car. 

The computer. 

etc.

www_slon_pics. Creatividad (Public Domain)

A time line about inventions

Duration:

2 lessons

Grouping:

Individual

Along these task we will create a timeline with all the members of our class. Each person will add one event. Each event will be the explanation of one important invention. 

To create each event we have to investigate the following parts about each invention.

Name of the invention.

Name of the inventor. 

Date of the invention.

Short description about how the invention is.

A short explanation about why the invention is important.

A picture about the invention.

Here we can find some websites which can be really useful for us to investigate:

Youtube video: American inventors for kids by Kids Academy. 

DKFindOut: Amazing inventions that changed the world. 

IKids: Inventive kids blog

Darkmoon_Art. Locomotora a vapor (Public Domain)

With all the selected inventions we will create a completed timeline. There are different options to create the final product. Maybe we can create the final timeline in a big poster with paper, or we can use  a web tool.

A great web tool for timelines is Timeline JS

If we don't know how to work with it the following video will help:

Youtube Video: TimeLine JS by Raúl Diego.

Viarami. Typewriter (Public Domain)

Your work will be assessed by the Rubric to assess a timeline (download in editable odt format, download in pdf).

Thinking about my learning

It is time to reflect about our learning today. Remind that everyday at the end of each lesson we will write on our Learning Diary asking the following questions:

Date.

What have I done?

What problems did I have? How did I solve these problems?

What have I learnt?

How can I improve my learning for the next lesson?

Do I want to learn a bit more about something?

Our teacher will check it and give us some feedback to help our improvements. 

An invention to change the world

Inventions to change the world

We have learnt about the importance of inventions and machines along the history. Once something was invented a concrete part of our daily life was easier, because most of the inventions or discoveries were done to facilitate people's life. 

For example: When the wheel was invented, it was easier to go from one place to another. And also it was easier to move very heavy weights. 

mohamed_hassan. Idea (Public Domain)

Task

Duration:

4 lessons

Grouping:

Pairs

Now it is time we are going to become inventors. We are going to create an invention with the following characteristics:

It should be a complex machine.

It may have at least two simple machines. 

It should be something new. It shouldn't be copied from other inventions.

We need to explain how it works and how it improves our daily lives. 

Peggy_Marco. Modelo 3D (Public Domain)

If we follow the following steps it is going to be easier to achieve our final aim:

Try to design your invention into a piece of paper. It is going to be a first draft so don't worry about erasing or changing whatever you think you can improve later. 

It is time to start creating a 3D model of the invention. It would be great if you reuse materials like plastic bottles, a box you are going to put into the paperbin, ...

Once you have finished the model, you are going to prepare a short presentation to explain:

How it is made (materials, simple machines it includes,....)

How it works (explain the process)

How it improves our daily life. 

You can use the following paragraph to guide your explanation: "Hello, my name is .......................... I would like to present my invention. I called it................... It is made of  .............................................(different materials). It includes  .................................................. (the simple machines included). It starts working when...................................... Then it ......................................................................... This invention is important because ...................................... (the improvements it offers to our daily life)"

You are going to record a video about the invention.

Finally, we can organize a Science Fair in which each group introduce its invention.  

markmags. Science (Public Domain)

TIPS FOR RECORDING: There are lots of tools for recording, just in case we need any help we propose to use Flipgrid.

For a normal video in which we can record ourself explaning the poster: How to record and submit a video by Flipgrid Help Center

Teacher's resources for starting with Flipgrid: Educators getting started with Flipgrid by Flipgrid

Your work will be assessed by the Rubric to assess the final product  (download in editable odt format, download in pdf).

Thinking about my learning

It is time to reflect about our learning today. Remind that everyday at the end of each lesson we will write on our Learning Diary asking the following questions:

Date.

What have I done?

What problems did I have? How did I solve these problems?

What have I learnt?

How can I improve my learning for the next lesson?

Do I want to learn a bit more about something?

Our teacher will check it and give us some feedback to help our improvements. 

There is an special document to reflex about all the process of learning we have done along this project. With the following document we will be able to think about what we have done and how we will use it for.  

How does my knowledge grow? The ladder of metacognition (download in editable odt format, download in pdf).

- Didactic Guidelines -

General guidelines for teachers

This project is made up of four different missions whose main topic is inventions and machines. There are activities to do individually or in pairs. 

This project is part of a set of projects designed to cover all the learning standards of the Natural Science curriculum of Primary Education are published at the BOE (March 1st 2014), pages 17 - 21.  With this project you will be able to let your students be autonomous learners and guide them through their learning.

There are activities which involve both individual work, collaborative pair work.

We strongly recommend to work with them through daily aims to get to the end of the project and accomplish each challenge successfully. This means at the beginning of each lesson you should take five minutes to check where your students are and to tell them where you would like them to get at the end of the mission.

For example: 'At the end of the mission each student will have had to finish the presentation, which will be checked by the teacher'.

Each project is student-centred and has several areas of interest:

In each project, students have to accomplish a task, in order to learn by doing.

There is also a challenge in each task, where they have to collaboratively design a product. They are expected to actively work with information and communication technologies. There should be a portfolio to show all their knowlegde along this set of tasks. 

Students also have to complete a learning diary, using a sharing document using the different tips we offer to the students at the end of each mission.

We strongly recommend student to have a personal portfolio,  where they have to reflect on the different contents they are working on, they have to upload the different audios and videos they produce, and they can share. This could be done by a blog, shared document or board. 

To sum it up, they are going to work on all the contents of the syllabus of their level with a project-based learning orientation.

Assessing

For assessment, both you as a teacher, and your students, are expected to use the the following rubrics:

Rubric to assess Mind maps 

Rubric to assess a text 

Rubric to assess a timeline 

Rubric to assess the final product 

This project is designed to be assessed following this pattern:

The Teacher will evaluate the portfolio with all the products produced during the project following the rubrics. It will be 40% of the final score.

The partners will carry out peer assessment the work and grade about how their teamwork has worked. It will be 20% of the final score . The students can generate the different criteria or items to be assessed.

Students will self-assess the final task using the rubric. It will be 20% of the final score.

The final score will also include a 20% for the teacher to evaluate how the students have been involved in the project or tackled the different activities.

At the end of the project the student will have been able to:

Know what is a simple machine and the different kinds of it. 

Discover the inventions along history. 

Create an invention using the contents learnt about simple machines.

Curricular references

Contents

Contenidos siguiendo el Curriculo del  BOE (March 1st 2014), pages 17 - 21.

Bloque 1. Iniciación a la actividad científica. 

Iniciación a la actividad científica. Aproximación experimental a algunas cuestiones.

Utilización de diferentes fuentes de información (directas, libros).

Lectura de textos propios del área.

Utilización de las tecnologías de la información y comunicación para buscar y seleccionar información, simular procesos y presentar conclusiones.

Trabajo individual y en grupo.

Técnicas de estudio y trabajo. Desarrollo de hábitos de trabajo. Esfuerzo y responsabilidad.

Planificación de proyectos y presentación de informes.

Realización de proyectos.

Bloque 5: La tecnología, los objetos y máquinas.  

Conocer los principios básicos que rigen máquinas y aparatos.

Planificar la construcción de objetos y aparatos con una finalidad previa, utilizando fuentes energéticas, operadores y materiales apropiados, realizando el trabajo individual y en equipo, y proporcionando información sobre que estrategias se han empleado.

Learning standards

Estándares de aprendizaje siguiendo el Curriculo del  BOE (March 1st 2014), pages 17 - 21.

Bloque 1. Iniciación a la actividad científica. 

1.1. Busca, selecciona y organiza información concreta y relevante, la analiza, obtiene conclusiones, comunica su experiencia, reflexiona acerca del proceso seguido y lo comunica oralmente y por escrito.
1.2. Utiliza medios propios de la observación.
1.3. Consulta y utiliza documentos escritos, imágenes y gráficos.
1.4. Desarrolla estrategias adecuadas para acceder a la información de los textos de carácter científico.

2.1. Manifiesta autonomía en la planificación y ejecución de acciones y tareas y tiene iniciativa en la toma de decisiones.

3.1. Utiliza, de manera adecuada, el vocabulario correspondiente a cada uno de los bloques de contenidos.
3.2. Expone oralmente de forma clara y ordenada contenidos relacionados con el área manifestando la compresión de textos orales y/o escritos.

4.1. Usa de forma autónoma el tratamiento de textos (ajuste de página, inserción de ilustraciones o notas, etc.).
4.2. Hace un uso adecuado de las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación como recurso de ocio.
4.3. Conoce y utiliza las medidas de protección y seguridad personal que debe utilizar en el uso de las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación.
4.4. Presenta los trabajos de manera ordenada, clara y limpia, en soporte papel y digital.
4.5. Utiliza estrategias para realizar trabajos de forma individual y en equipo, mostrando habilidades para la resolución pacífica de conflictos.
4.6. Conoce y respeta las normas de uso y de seguridad de los instrumentos y de los materiales de trabajo.

5.1. Realiza experiencias sencillas y pequeñas investigaciones: planteando problemas, enunciando hipótesis, seleccionando el material necesario, realizando, extrayendo conclusiones, y comunicando los resultados.
5.2. Realiza un proyecto, trabajando de forma individual o en equipo y presenta un informe, utilizando soporte papel y/o digital, recogiendo información de diferentes fuentes (directas, libros, Internet), con diferentes medios y comunicando de forma oral la experiencia realizada, apoyándose en imágenes y textos escritos.

Bloque 5. La tecnología, objetos y máquinas

1.1. Identifica diferentes tipos de máquinas, y las clasifica según el número de piezas, la manera de accionarlas, y la acción que realizan.
1.2. Observa, identifica y describe algunos de los componentes de las máquinas.
1.3. Observa e identifica alguna de las aplicaciones de las máquinas y aparatos, y su utilidad para facilitar las actividades humanas.

2.1. Construye alguna estructura sencilla que cumpla una función o condición para resolver un problema a partir de piezas moduladas, (escalera, puente, tobogán, etc.).

Key competences

At the end of the project the student will have worked and developed these competences:

Lingüistic communication:

Student will be able to describe and invention, how it works and how it changes the life.

Maths competences and basic competences in Science and Technology:

Students will be able to design and create and invention. 

Digital competence:

Students will be able to create a products  using an ICT Tool. (mind map, timeline and videos)

Students will be able to use different links to investigate in the net.

Learn to learn competence:

Students will be able to reflex about their learning process everyday by using a tool such a Learning Diary.

Social competences:

Students will be able to work in group and asses their working along the project.

Students will be able to make group decisions to achieve the final product.

Entrepreneurship competences:

Students will be able to work automously by following the steps of the investigation. 

Cultural competences:

Students will be able to learn about how inventions have changed the world. 

Timing

This project implies the use of about ten or eleven fifty-minute lessons. The timing is, obviously, approximate. It will depend on the learning pace of the students and on their interests and the activities done in class.

Estefano. Time

The ten - eleven lessons could be used according to this guide:

The first lesson is for the Breaking the ice. 

Two of the lessons will be to investigate about machines and the different kinds of it.

Two lesson will  be use to investigate and create a timeline about the inventons along history. 

Another four lessons will be to design, create and explain an invention to change the world.

There is an extra lesson about PAST TENSE for scaffolding the understanding of the grammar the students will need to express the history of inventions. 

And the last lesson will be a good opportunity to assess students and do the collaborative assesment. And also it would be great to evaluate the project itself.

Resources

ICT resources/apps/tools

For this project you will need the following links to different sites:

Six simple machines rap. by Jack Hartmann Kids Music Channel

YouTube video: Simple and complex machines by Happy Learning English.

Ducksters: Physics  for kids - Simple machines. 

Cool Kids Facts: Simple Machine Facts. 

What did you do? Simple past tense. by Easy English

Agenda Web: Past simple - Exercises.

Learn English - British Council: Past simple - sentences. 

LiveWorksheets: Past Simple Regular and Irregular verbs. 

Youtube video: American inventors for kids by Kids Academy. 

DKFindOut: Amazing inventions that changed the world. 

IKids: Inventive kids blog

Tools:

Flipgrid.

Popplet

Bubbl.us

Timeline JS

How to

How to record and submit a video by Flipgrid Help Center

Educators getting started with Flipgrid by Flipgrid

¿Qué es visual thinking? y para qué usarlo en educación by Garbiñe Larralde. 

Videotutorial:  Popplet. Herramientas digitales básicas para docentes inexpertos por Ingrid Mosquera

Videotutorial: Bubbl.us. Herramientas digitales básicas para docentes inexpertos por Ingrid Mosquera.

Youtube Video: TimeLine JS by Raúl Diego.

- Fact sheet and download -

Fact sheet

Title

The inventors

Subject

Natural Science

Level / course

5th course Primary Education

Driving question or Challenge

Can we change the world with an invention?

Design, build and describe an invention which can change the world. 

Description

This resource will help the students to learn about the machines and the different kinds of simple machines, the history of inventions and how to create an invention. They will have some designed task to investigate about the topic and use all their learning in a design of the invention.  All the tasks are designed for them to work autonomously and to reflex about their own process of learning. Also along them we try to foster student's collaboration. 

Contents

Simple machines.

History of inventions.

Design the invention which can change the world. 

Timing

11 sessions of 50 minutes each approx. 

Download source file

This resource has got a CC BY-SA license and therefore it can be used, downloaded, modified and adapted without any problem, as long as you provide the name of the creator, and in case of being transformed and publishing a new version, it has to be done under the same license CC BY-SA as the original.

To give appropriate credit of the author of the resource, you can use the following text: 

This material is an adaptation of the original resource "The inventors" from CeDeC’s  EDIA project.

Next, we offer the source file (original resource) to modify the material with eXeLearning, free authoring tool which is available for any operating system. 

Download elp file

Credits

EDIA project. The inventors. Cedec

Author: Javier Ramos Sancha

NIPO (web): 847-19-122-0; ISSN (web): 2695-4192; DOI (web): 10.4438/2695-4192_PE_2019_847-19-122-0; NIPO (formato elp): 847-19-138-5; NIPO (formato ePub): 847-19-137-X; NIPO (formato en línea): 847-19-136-4; DOI (formato ePub): 10.4438/2695-4192_PEePub88_2021_847-19-137-X

- Resource feedback -

Ayúdanos a mejorar este recurso contestando al cuestionario de opinión sobre REA del proyecto EDIA. Muchas gracias por tu colaboración.

Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike License 4.0