Interdisciplinary Project Plan

Subject Areas: Science, ELA/Writing, And Visual Arts

Project Objectives: By the end of the project, students will have:

Gained descriptive and sequential writing skills

Gained a deeper understanding of a scientific process and the
steps that take place throughout that process
Gained illustrative techniques that display a processes steps

Stage 1: Experiment Understanding

A clean 16 ounce plastic soda bottle

1/2 cup 20-volume hydrogen peroxide liquid (20-volume is a 6% solution, ask an

adult to get this from a beauty supply store or hair salon)

1 Tablespoon (one packet) of dry yeast

3 Tablespoons of warm water

Liquid dish washing soap

Food coloring

Small cup

Safety goggles

Understand steps of experiment-perform and record each time

different amounts of yeastanswer reflective questions: what is
happening during this process? How does the amount of yeast influence
this process?

Stage 2: Organization and Writing

Thought organization: reflect on the initial directions that were givenwhat would you change? Why?
o Create rough draft of your instructions using following questions
to guide your thinking:
What do clear instructions look like?
What would you like to see in project instructions?
How important is the language that you use?
How will you group the steps? What will your sequencing
look like?

Steps, stages?

Stage 3: Revision and Assessment

Revising steps:
o For this stage students will be using their own stages to perform
the experiment. They will be rating the effectiveness of their
steps with how their experiment turns out and if they are left
with any questions throughout the process.
o The class is to only use the steps that they have created for this
stage and are not permitted to view the initial steps. This creates
a dependence on their own steps and will allow for better
assessment
o After this, student groups will be able to look back at the initial
steps and see what they have missed in their own, if anything at
all.
o The groups will be asked to take note of these questions
throughout this process:
What questions are you left with?
What do you see the strengths? Weaknesses?
What needs to be changed or reworded and why?
Did the experiment show the results that are expected? If
not, what steps did you miss or not word properly?
After the stages have been reviewed, students will rewrite and finalize
their worded instructions.

Stage 4: Illustration

Illustration steps:
o This step will require students to illustrate the steps that are
listed throughout their newly formed instructions
The illustrations should:
Guide the reader through the steps
Not distract from the words, but enhance the steps and the
understanding
Be accurate illustrations of what the step entails or looks
like
Be creative!

Stage 5: Assessment

For this step, rather than having just the instructor assess the students
understanding and writing skills, their peers will put each others
instructions to the test.

Students will exchange instructions and follow them through

Good instructions will:
o Guide the reader through the experiment and will lead to
expected results, as marked in Step 1
o Be clear and articulate so that the students will not have to ask
for direction from the teacher or the author or the instructions
Afterwards, students will rate their peers instructions on how clear they
were, how well their experiment turned out, and the overall
organization of the instructions
The teacher will also collect the instructions, as well as the peer rating
sheets, and assess the students understanding of the experiment,
writing abilities, and illustration techniques