Recipe Lesson Plan

Tina Wagenaar

Community School for Social Justice

Summer Research Program for Science Teachers

August 2009

Overview:

This lesson connects to the process of writing up procedures for lab work and realizing the importance of writing measurements, labels, and all important values into a procedure so that it can be reproduced at a later date. This lesson will use the more familiar vehicle of a recipe to introduce the concept. Students will be presented with three different recipes that have been altered from their original written form and they will compare and contrast them and identify what needs to be in a good recipe.

Objective:

            SWBAT compare and contrast elements of three different recipes

            SWBAT identify missing components from recipes

            SWBAT connect recipes to experimental procedures

            SWBAT work as a group to complete the task (optional)

Do Now:

            List the sections that recipes are usually divided into.

Development:

1.       Give students five minutes to complete Do Now

2.       Have students volunteer sections of recipes that they have come up with for the Do Now.

3.       Give students packet of three modified recipes and worksheet to fill out as they go through the recipes.  Students can work individually or as groups for this portion of the activity.

4.       If groups are chosen roles of time keeper, recorder, facilitator and presenter can be assigned.

5.       Allow for twenty minutes to give students time to review recipes and fully answer the worksheet.

6.       Have groups share back their impression on the recipes.  What were the best recipes, what were the worst?  Go through each recipe and allow students to suggest areas for improvement.

7.       Give each group an additional five minutes to try and develop a connection between the lesson and laboratory practice

8.       Hand out exit slip.

Exit Slip:

            Construct a Venn diagram comparing and contrasting a recipe to a laboratory procedure

Standards:

            Standard 1: Scientific Inquiry:

Key Idea 2: Beyond the use of reasoning and consensus, scientific inquiry involves the testing of proposed explanations involving the use of conventional techniques and procedures and usually requiring considerable ingenuity.

            Standard 6: Interconnectedness: Common Themes SYSTEMS THINKING:

                       Key Idea 1: Through systems thinking, people can recognize the commonalities that exist among all systems and how parts of a system interrelate and combine to perform specific functions.