Sunshine Power Company MEA

Lesson Content

• Lesson Plan Template:

  Model Eliciting Activity (MEA)

• Formative Assessment

  
  

  The teacher will use the readiness and comprehension questions as the formative assessment.

• Feedback to Students

  
  

  The students will receive immediate feedback throughout the lesson. The teacher will introduce the lesson, then allow the students to work either individually or in small groups to complete the first task. After the first task, the teacher will ask the students reflection questions (set 1) as a whole group. The teacher will give feedback specific to each group (or individual) regarding their process and/or procedure for solving the problem.

• Summative Assessment

  
  

  The teacher will determine if the students have reached the learning targets for this resource by repeating the educative assessment after the second data set. If the students have explained their procedure in detail and defend their choice verbally, they have met the target for this lesson. With MEAs, the answers are open-ended. This means that all solutions should be share-able and reusable (generalizable). The solution to an MEA is a process and a "way of thinking" that we would like the students to achieve. This resource should demonstrate the students' improvement in conceptual difficulties and should thus allow the teacher to measure the impact of this resource on student learning. To ensure that students meet the science standard, students' second letters should address how the windiness of a city will affect the wind power.

• Learning Objectives

  
  

  The student will be able to use prior knowledge and problem solving skills to solve non-routine problems and real world situations, using mathematical and scientific models.

  Students will collaborate in teams.

  Students will write their procedures in a letter format to the client.

  Students will make decisions and defend them based on information about wind energy in each city.

• Prior Knowledge

  
  

  Students will need to know how to read a chart/table. Students will need to know how to write a basic business or friendly letter.

• Instructional Suggestions

  
  

  For task 1, students receive client letter 1 and dataset 1.

  The teacher can ask the readiness/comprehension questions to the class or have students complete them individually on paper. After students understand the task, they can begin to work in teams of approximately 3-4.

  In teams, students work on the problem and respond to the client with the requested deliverables. As students are working, the teacher circulates to each team to ask the reflection questions.

  For task 2, students receive the client letter 2 and dataset 2.

  Teams test, evaluate, and revise their first procedure as necessary with the second dataset and provide the requested deliverables as specified in the second letter.

• Guiding/reflective Questions

  
  

  What are some reasons that a business may want to purchase wind energy?

  Why would you consider the distance in determining which company to choose?

  How do you think your team is going to "think like engineers" for this task?

• Reading Passage 1

  
  

  Sunshine Power Company

  1234 Florida Parkway, Orlando, FL 32828

  1-(800)-555-5678

  Good day,

  We at Sunshine Power Company are on the verge of expanding to more counties and we are in need of help determining which new wind farms to purchase energy from. Sunshine Power Company prides itself on buying local renewable energy sources to provide the best prices to our customers.

  We have found 5 new companies that harness wind energy in our state using wind turbines. They have each sent us some information that we need to use to decide which company would be most cost effective. We need to secure the most amount of energy for the best price to pass the savings on to our customers. Can you and your team help us come up with a way to rank them?

  We will supply you with information that you will need to rank these wind harnessing companies. Your help would be greatly appreciated in developing a process to rank them. Can you supply us with a letter that shows how your team came up with your decision and describe that process?

  We can't expand until we know where our new source of energy will come from, so please hurry!

  Thank you for your help in this matter, and have a SUNNY day!

  Suni Daze

  CEO, Sunshine Power Co.

  Letter 1

• Readiness Questions

  
  

  1. Who is the client for this problem?

  2. Why does the client need our help?

  3. What do you think will be difficult about solving this problem for the client?

  4. What two things are required to be in your letter to the owner of Sunshine Power Company?

• Data Set 1

  
  

  Data Table 1

• Letter Template 1

  
  

  Date:__________________

   

  Dear Mrs. Daze,

  Our team, _______________________________, has determined that you should use ______________________________ to supply your wind energy. The procedure we used to come to this decision was:

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

  Sincerely, _______________________

• Comprehension/readiness questions

  
  

  See Readiness Questions.

• Reading Passage 2

  
  

  Sunshine Power Company

  1234 Florida Parkway, Orlando, FL 32828

  1-(800)-555-5678

  Hello,

  We strongly appreciate your help in creating a procedure to determine the best company for our needs. You did a great job. The information in your letter was really helpful. However, due to changes in the state laws and regulations on how energy is transferred, we have to change out all of the cables used to transfer this energy from the potential suppliers to Sunshine Power Company. In addition, we have included some new information about how windy each city is.

  We need you to use your procedure to rank the companies once again with the new information that we have included in this letter. You may find that you need to change the initial procedure in order to help us find a reliable business partner. Please write us back and let us know if you had to modify your procedure and how you would rank the companies. If you had to make a change to your procedure, explain what changes you made and why you made them.

  Thanks again,

  Suni Daze

  CEO, Sunshine Power Co.

  Letter 2

• Data Set 2

  
  

  Data Table 2

• Letter Template 2

  
  

  Date:__________________

  Dear Mr. Robertson,

  Our team, _______________________________, has determined that you should use ______________________________ as the company that supplies your wind energy. We __________________(did/did not) have to change our original procedure. The changes we made were:

   

   

   

   

   

   

  Sincerely, _______________________

• Reflection question 2

  
  

  1. Did you use a new strategy or procedure to determine which company to recommend to the owner of Sunshine Power Company?

  2. Was the company that you recommended the second time the same company that you recommended the first time?

  3. If it was not the same company, why do you think that it changed?

  4. Did you use more than one strategy or procedure to help you determine which company to recommend?