John S. Martinez Sea and Sky STEM Magnet School is part of the New Haven Public School district where eighty-five percent of our students are Hispanic and speak English as a second language. With the needs of our English Language Learners (ELL) in mind, this unit will provide students with authentic, meaningful learning that is culturally relevant, linguistically supportive, and connects students to the larger global community. Concepts will be taught through student centered, engaging hands on activities that facilitate inquiry, student discourse, and language acquisition. Bloom’s hierarchy of cognition will guide the development of critical thinking.
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The classroom culture will be transformed to one of student centered learning, where students are actively engaged, exercising higher order thinking while working collaboratively to solve real world problems. In this way, content will unify concepts, cultivate language acquisition, and develop depth of knowledge around the science of our global water system and the life that depends on it.