Brief Description

After students learn about the planets of the Milky Way they get to be creative and create their own planet in another galaxy.  The students incorporate aspects of our planets for example:  atmospheric layers, plants, animals, weather, and landscape.  They use their own art as well as digital pictures for the pictures of their planet.  The students then create a newspaper on Microsoft Publisher to headline their new planet.

Standards and Frameworks

Technology Standards

• 1T-E2.  Demonstrate increasingly sophisticated operation of technology components.

• W-E1. Use correct spelling, punctuation, capitalization, grammar and usage, along with varied sentence structure and paragraph organization, to complete effectively a variety of writing tasks.

Academic

By the end of the lesson students will develop a newspaper including information on a “made-up” planet using Microsoft Publisher with 100% accuracy.

Technological

By the end of the lesson students will be able to demonstrate increasingly sophisticated operation of technology components by using a digital camera, scanner, and Microsoft Publisher with 100% accuracy.

Pre-Requisite Technology Skills

• Use of a digital camera (Sony Mavica in this case)
• Use of a scanner
• Microsoft Publisher experience
• Saving to the network server
The newspaper gets pretty big with pictures, so discs won’t usually hold the information.  You could also burn it to a CD if you don’t have individual student server accounts at your school.

• Digital camera
• Scanner
• One computer per group with Microsoft Publisher – I let 3 students work together in a group and it worked well.

ESL – Have the student add personal information using their culture.  They could even use their native language as the language of the planets inhabitants.

Gifted – Allow them to create their own design for the newspaper instead of using Publisher.  They could be more creative in the layout or even present the information in a different way. (imovie, poster, picture display with captions)

Support/Resource – Allow the students to work in smaller groups and with no time limit.  Let them use Student Writing Center for the newspaper template because it is simpler.  Give them an outline for the newspaper so they know what to write in what area of the newspaper.  It makes the project less overwhelming.

Procedures

DAY 1 – 1 hour

1. Brainstorm with the students the properties of a planet.  The students will discuss items like atmospheric layers, plants, animals, weather, landscape, measurements of the planet, and distances in space.

2. Tell the students that they are astronomers and have just discovered a new planet in a distant galaxy.  Their job is to find out all their information that they can about the planet, name it, and create a newspaper describing the discovery.  They will soon realize how create they can be in the project.  Since they didn’t really discover a new planet all the information will be fictitious.  I explained that there would be a variety of components to the newspaper.

1. A scanned drawing of the planet that will be created by the group.
2. A digital picture of something on the planet.  I gave the example of taking a picture of a plant in our school garden and pretending it is the food of the “being” on the planet.
3. Three articles about the planet.

4. Have each group brainstorm ideas for their planet.  They could use Kidspiration, Inspiration, outlining, webbing, or any other form.

5. Once you see that groups have constructed a “planet,” have them draw and color a picture of the planet to scan into the newspaper.

DAY 2 – 3 hours

6. At this point the students should be ready to start writing some stories about their planet.  They should have three stories about three aspects of the planet.

1. Some of the students got really creative and did interviews with “beings” that they encountered on the planet.  Some talked about the location, the dynamics, the animals, the plants, etc…

7. Once the students have the picture of the planet drawn and their articles written they are ready for publication.  I took my students to our school lab to create their newspapers on Microsoft Publisher.  If you don’t have Publisher you could use Student Writing Center, Claris Works, or even Word.

When using Publisher the students should choose one of the Newsletter Templates.  I only required a 1-sided newspaper, so the students can delete the last 3 pages.  I find that the templates can be overwhelming because they are so long.

9. In the computer lab the students take turns scanning pictures, taking pictures with the camera, and working on the newspaper.  It took the students about 3 hours total to come up with a completed product.  Depending on the level of proficiency it may take longer.

10. I had the students print it out in black and white to edit and then after they edited it, they could print in color.

11. Share the newspapers with the class.

Assessment

The students are assessed on the completion of their newspaper with a rubric.
 

Teacher Name: Susie Gilbertson
Site: Harelson
Date Submitted: April 3, 2003