Finally, the unit provides students with an opportunity to expand their skills and understanding as they apply technological design to create their own recycled greeting card, stationery, or postcard. Sixth-graders are becoming capable of reading about and articulating complex information. They are also able to develop higher-level scientific reasoning skills, such as identifying cause and effect, designing and conducting controlled tests, and supporting their conclusions with evidence. The activities in this unit, which culminate in an extended opportunity to use a technological design process, challenge and broaden students' skills and abilities in these areas. Lesson 1 begins with a class brainstorming session.
Students share what they know about paper and record their thoughts and questions about it.
They collect, observe, and describe the properties of different papers they find in their environment. The lesson suggests methods you can use to introduce students to the basic steps of technological design, which they will explore in greater detail later in the unit. One method is for students to establish a paper-recycling station that will supply them with recovered paper to recycle throughout the unit. Lesson 1 also serves as a pre-unit assessment of students' knowledge of the properties and uses of paper. By comparing the appearances of the paper samples both wet and dry, students have the opportunity to observe that paper is made of fine, intertwined fibers, and they begin to speculate on the effect water has on these fibers.