David Merritt Chemistry Grade 12 Gems/Minerals The Mineral Kingdom Virtual Field Trip

Lesson Objective To allow the students to go on a virtual field trip to the Museum Amsterdam Sauer where gems and rear minerals are displayed Students will explore the website and pick out their favorite gem/mineral or the one they find most interesting After they find the gem of their choice they will be given a project to do on it Essential Question: After finding the mineral/gem of your choice, can you describe this field trip was an important part of the lesson?

Procedure Students will begin by logging into their Wiki account Next they will go to the page labeled “Virtual Field Trip” From here they will be able to see the description, rubric, and example of the project they are to do Links will be given on the Wiki Page to the website you will be choosing the gem/mineral from

Assessment Students will go to the website and observe the different gems/minerals and will be given about 40 minutes to do so After this 40 minute period they will each need to come up with an idea of what there project will be on Following their decision, I will show them an example of what their assignment will include

Assessment Con’t After choosing a rock, they will make an brainstorming outline of all the information they include on the gem they choose This information will be gathered and then they will be asked to make a Prezi Presentation for their final assessment

Rationale: This Virtual field trip is appropriate for my lesson because: -It shows the students the wide variety of gems and rear minerals that are out there and will allow them to explore their origins, physical characteristics, density, absorption spectra etc. -Gives them options from what they want to choose so they do not have to be given one that they do not want to do -Allows them to explore with Web 2.0 tool Prezi

Rationale Con’t This enhances the instructional Process because: -Students are exploring more visual tasks including Wiki, Prezi, and the virtual tours -They are given a number of options to choose from which can be less stressful for them

Reflection +’s - Found many different types of virtual tours that can be used for future lesson plans - -The more Prezi was used and played with the easier it became - -Transferring information to Wiki is getting easier - -The tour showed how the minerals are found and mined which was very interesting

Reflection Con’t -’s -Too many sites that could be used; it was kind of hard to decide on one and wrap a lesson around it - Organization and making everything piece together was a little harder than I expected (Making sure things weren’t confusing)

References: museum/index.html Prezi.com Wikilinks.com