Brief Description:
Students use books and handouts to create game show questions about soils and then form teams and play the game.
Objectives:
- Have students conduct research on a topic
- Students will form questions based on facts and information gathered from research
- Share researched information with the class through a fun game
- Challenge students to work as a group
Materials :
Books and handouts about soils and compost. Paper and writing materials, whiteboard or chalkboard, play money.
NC Standard Course of Study Goals :
Science –2.01, 2.03, 2.04, 2.05, 2.06
English Language Arts –1.04, 1.06,2.03, 2.06, 2.08, 3.03, 3.06, 4.02, 5.08.
Math – 1.02
Getting Started / Procedure
- Explain to students that they are going to be able to be team contestants in a game of Jeopardy, but first they have to create the questions for the game. Students are divided into groups of 4. Each group is given resources to use to research and create questions. They have 15 minutes (or more dependent on time frame) to create at least one question for each category including the answer. Possible categories include “worms”, “What is soil made of”, “compost”, “properties of soil”, “true or false”, “what am I”, “soil rhymes”, etc.
- While students are researching the questions the teacher should create a game board with each category listed across the top of the white board/ black board with dollar amounts 100-500 listed underneath each category. Have students sort their questions by category and turn them into the teacher or facilitator.
- Within each team, each child should be assigned one of the following roles 1) speaker (try to pick the quietest child, or one that rarely has a chance to speak in class) – this person must consult with their group for each answer, but is the only one in the group allowed to give the final answer out loud, or the team looses their turn. 2) Category decision maker – picks which category the group’s question will come from. 3) The dollar decision maker – decided which dollar amount within the chosen category. 4) The accountant – this person holds the money.
- Explain to students that this game differs from Jeopardy in that the answers do not have to be in the form of a question, and that each team gets one turn at a time, regardless of whether or not they answered the question correctly.
- Pick a number to decide what team goes first, and play the game! As students get answers correct they are given play money – you may decide if you want to create a prize for the winners or not.
Extensions:
- Students create questions for other classes to answer.
- Students create new categories and research questions for them.
- Students use the Internet to search for facts or questions.