Connect Create Collaborate : Habitat Collaboration

Over the past few weeks, I have had the privilege of collaborating with my 3rd grade and kindergarten bilingual classes on a great science research project. It just so happened the while 3rd grade was learning about ecosystems and food chains, kindergarten was also learning about animals. During an afternoon discussion with one of my amazing kindergarten teachers, she brought up the idea of having kindergarten engage in authentic research as opposed to the traditional full class research project that they usually completed.

I knew from working with our 3rd grade bilingual classes on a regular basis, that they truly understood research and how to complete a research project at a high level of excellence. Our 3rd graders went through the entire research process beginning with coming up with good research questions and ending with presenting their projects to their peers and even creating an MLA formatted bibliography. These kids were so excited about their projects. I sat in class while they worked on giving feedback to each other. These 3rd graders knew how to give meaningful, specific feedback in a way that is helpful and not hurtful. They ended up with presentations that were truly excellent.

Thus began a great collaboration experience. The 3rd graders started learning about their habitat and specifically about endangered animals within that habitat. They were then paired up with a kindergarten friend who chose one of the endangered animals to learn more about. The 3rd graders came up with the research questions to help guide the kindergarten students and then assisted them with finding the information online and in books. What they ended up with was an awesome google slides presentation created by the 3rd grader and a book created by the kindergarten student with assistance from the 3rd grader about the endangered animal. We scheduled time in the library for our students to present side-by-side. Administration, parents and other teachers and students were all invited. The outcome was amazing!