Making Worksheets Personal - Student Examples
2nd May 2008 by Ben Rimes
I’m a very project-based educator. I like to give students all of the pieces of a learning puzzle, show them how some pieces can be arranged to fit with others, and then let them see what they create. I very rarely give examples of what I want their finished work to look like, because I don’t want students to have some pre-conceived notion of what is “good” or “bad”. Instead, I like to work from rubrics or level of engagement. If a student isn’t engaged with a project, I’ll try to find a way to tailor the assignment for him or her. Likewise, modifying assignments for students that are struggling is a constant as well.
So after 3 weeks of the 3rd graders conducting research on the Native Americans and Early Michigan Settlers of the 1800s (remember, I only have about 25 usable minutes each week after typing time), the kids were getting really discouraged with the work. It was slow, tedious, time-consuming, and was really starting to bum me out. Which is why I decided to make a really nice worksheet with graphics and text bubbles for them to fill out….which really got me depressed got me even more bummed out. Here I am in the 21st century creating a “prettier” worksheet and expect them to be engaged by it?
Instead, I fired up Kidspiration, downloaded a dozen or so pictures depicting early settler and Native American life, and let them roll with it. I asked them a few questions about “Little House on the Prairie”, and why it was such an interesting story. After talking about how Laura Ingalls Wilder managed to mix historical accounts of daily life with an interesting story, I showed them the pictures I had gathered in Kidspiration, and encouraged them to get creative. Instead of just writing down the information on a piece of paper, which they had been doing, I encouraged them to create a little story, as if they were actually a Native American or an early settler, and use the pictures to create “visual notes”. The end result was that the students had a lot of fun making their worksheets to suit their learning tastes. Some students focused on creating humorous lines to explain their life 200 years ago, while others were very serious and staight forward about describing the pictures. Many even started using other pictures that I hadn’t downloaded to help them better explain facts from the past.
Sure, they were still worksheets, but instead of fill in the blanks by searching for information, they were creating a personal story that they could alter, edit, and show to other people instead of just reading it. You could easily accomplish the same thing using Microsoft Word and inserting images, or fire up a painting program and have the kids draw the pictures themselves with their notes. These are a few that I thought were particularly nice. Just click on them to see a larger version.
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The Wilderness Society has put together a really nice collection of teacher resources in their Teacher’s Lounge that emphasize making everyday a day to respect the Earth. Lots of links to Earth day sites, environmental organizations, and downloadable lesson plans are just a few of the teacher resources. Interactive adventures, photo treks, and recommendations for off line reading help round out the resources for students from kindergarten through high school.
Always providing the most in depth and immersive resources on the environment, National Geographic does a fantastic job of blending the latest environmental news with timely in depth articles and interactive activities. The Earth day page of National Geographic’s website is well suited for middle school and high school classes, though an elementary teacher could “cheery pick” resources. 
Earth 911 is a great resource for starting your own grassroots recycling and ecological efforts. 
These days, with a family, a 40 minute commute, and having purchased a house worthy of Tom Hank’s Money Pit, there’s little left to purchase games, and thus I’ve been limited in my choices. Which is why I spent a small part of my Spring Break today playing several games of the entirely free 
Players start with 10,000 people, a small town, and $400. You can choose to set the tax rate at whatever percent you like, use the city funds to play the energy commodities market where you can buy or sell coal and natural gas, enact environmental policies within your city, and even improve or demolish the landscape to suit your economical or environmental needs. I had two dismal starts to the game; I lost once due to bankruptcy after buying natural gas heavily and then seeing the market drop out, and then lost again when my city became a ghost town because of the people leaving in droves after building numerous coal mines and gas wells around the city. The third time was the charm, and although I didn’t create a booming population, I managed to maintain a balance of ecologically-friendly energy production (geothermal plant) and more traditional means of energy production (I built a natural gas rig out in the ocean). Enacting programs like energy efficiency education and solar panels in the city drained my city funds each turn, but I managed to offset that with a slightly higher tax rate and by selling off the excess gas I was producing from the drilling rig. You can see from my report card above that I received an “A+” on my environmental record, as well as “A”s in energy management and popularity, but I earned a “D” for my population growth and well-being.