With all these changes happening to all these mountain ranges AND the areas around us, we began documenting our questions in a shared space to set up our Driving Question Board. Not only did we have a ton of things we were wondering about, but we know all good scientists think about how they'll attempt to answer their questions, so we began brainstorming investigation ideas!
With our newfound knowledge about how Mt. Everest is not only growing taller but shifting in location to the northeast, students were asked to create initial models for what is causing these changes to occur. Check out the sample below! With some careful discussion, we attempted to come to an agreement on what was happening at Everest! Here are the two sections' consensus models. Note that we didn't agree on much and actually ended up with more questions. Ha! All this thinking about Everest got us thinking that with all the other mountains there are in the world, are they growing and shifting, too? We did some research on other mountains, and are realizing that there are some similarities, but not all mountains do the same thing! Since some mountains shrink and others even stay the same, students were asked to develop their own models to explain these phenomena: After sharing our initial models, we attempted to come to consensus again by explaining how mountains could possibly decrease in height or experience no change whatsoever! Recognizing that mountains are one thing we find that comprises a landscape, we began thinking that other landforms would also be changing. We started thinking about related phenomena, big and small, along with the causes for what could be changing them!
A tweet Mrs. Brinza read over winter break began thoughtful curiosity to figure out with her students: We were curious about how a mountain could get taller, so we turned to an article Mrs. Brinza found and had a LOT of questions about it! Even though Mt. Everest is really far from us here in Chicago, we also are driven by just how different the landscape looks compared to ours!
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Mrs. BrinzaThere's nothing like seeing the vastness of a mountain before eyes! Archives
May 2021
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