Question+4


 * Are there activities that require students to engage in complex critical thinking skills?**

Although much of our third grade lesson on the life cycles of a plant is knowledge and comprehension based, there is certainly one good “Explore Activity” in the lesson that calls for higher level thinking. The students are given halves of lima bean seeds and a moist towellete, and then asked to observe the bean as it grows for several days in a plastic bag and record their findings. Critical thinking then comes into play when students are required to make inferences and draw conclusions on how they thought the seed grew over the observed days, and which parts of the seed provided nourishment for growth. Then, after they make these inferences and essentially hypothesize how the seed was able to grow, they are to formulate and conduct an experiment to test their ideas. The students use analysis when asked to draw conclusions on how the lima bean grew up from a seedling and provided nourishment for itself. Then, after the partnered-up students make inferences together on what they observed, they use synthesis by formulating their own experiment to test their ideas using the scientific method. The students then finally engage in evaluation when they draw final conclusions based on their own experiment.
 * Part A:**

Throughout the chapter there are multiple ways students are encouraged to think critically. According to Bloom’s Taxonomy higher order thinking skills can be used to grasp a subject in a more complete way. Three skills that I would embellish more throughout the science unit would be application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. I would embellish these skills by assigning students a writing prompt that would cause students to apply the knowledge learned throughout the unit and will encourage them their creativity to fix a problem. The writing prompt would read, “Bees are one of the animals that help pollenate plants. If there were no insects like bees left, how could the plants become pollenated? What could you do or create that could help with pollination? What would happen if plants could not be pollenated?” By answering this question, students would have to think outside of the box and use the information learned throughout the lesson in their answer. Students could learn from each other by reading their answers to the questions in small groups.
 * Part B:**

The additional activity that was added to the unit will help students achieve higher order thinking skills according to Bloom’s Taxonomy. Bloom’s Taxonomy describes aspects of a lesson that require learning within different levels of higher order thinking. The levels that were reached with the additional activity were application, synthesis, analysis and evaluation. Application requires students to solve new problems with the information learned in abstract ways. Students will use application when they are asked to solve the problem of lack of pollination. They will them describe a model they could create to solve the problem. By doing this they are using the skill of synthesis. After putting the information together and synthesizing, students will be required to analyze their new creation and use evaluation when determining what would happen if the invention did not work and the plants were not pollenated. By reaching each of these levels students will be able to grasp the lesson in more of a holistic way.
 * Part C:**