Students will take pre and post assessments as well as complete learning journals that highlight “How my Body Works” through data collection, graphing, writing and artistic representations of their observations. Just as it is important for teachers to use graphical displays to understand and motivate their students, students should learn how to understand and use graphical displays for their personal and academic work. Students will be given alternate strategies to increase comprehension, motivate scientific thinking, and problem solve inquiry based math. This unit will allow for various interdisciplinary discussions and projects as well as support their preparation for taking the Connecticut Mastery Test in third grade which will include analyzing graphs, tables and maps. This unit will also touch upon the essential components of balanced nutrition. These basic facts will lead to how are people are structured to ensure efficiency and survival. All throughout, students will collect data in a journal that is divided into three parts: How My Body Works, How I am Feeling (lifestyle/ social stresses/ school) and Healthy Habits (nutrition, exercise, sleep, hygiene) journals. There will be a series of math lessons: “What is a graph? What features does every graph have to include? Why do we have graphs? What is the purpose of a graph? and How do you interpret graphs?” Students will analyze and graph their own data to compare/ contrast and make “The Body -- Mind Connection” (through analyzing the data, inferring and predicting.)
