Genius Hour


You are being given the opportunity to choose a topic to research and produce a project about. Take the following steps to complete this assignment.

Step 1: Your Topic!
Choose a topic from the list below and narrow your subject to something specific. If you choose to study a State, you need to pick a specific state or a set of states and decide what you would like to learn about them. If you want to learn about what animals have lived in California and how people have affected them, that would be a specific topic you could research.

Step 2: Question making: Curiosity and thinking leads to more questions.
Think about your topic. What questions can you think of that would help you become an expert on your topic? Ask others what questions they have about your topic on Edmodo Write down at least 5 questions you think will have about a paragraph length answer that will be the most interesting and help you understand your topic best. In order to choose just 5, you should consider many more of your own and classmates, even if they are not the best quality. Use the mindmapping tool for questions when you are creating questions.

Step 3: Research and continue question making:
Research using the research tools on your iPad or a book. Focus on answering your 5 questions from Step 2. While you are answering the five questions, be aware of and record the new questions you come up with on your mindmapping tool popplet. Write down the information you learn along with a citation in Edmodo, recording what webpage or book you read the information
in, who made the book or webpage, when they made it, what page you read, and who published the book or what website supports the webpage.
citation example: www.mreveland.wikispaces.com, Mr. Eveland, 2014, Genius Hour Page, Wikispaces.
webpage name creator year year page number or title website

Step 4:
Develop a presentation for your audience. The audience is identified in each Genius Hour category. Use whichever presentation tools you would like to from your Presentation menu.

Step 5:
Practice your presentation in preparation for the actual presentation.

Genius Hour Sections

1.

Science

  • Earthquakes
  • volcanos
  • Digestive System
  • Circulatory System
  • Weather
  • Water Cycle
  • Electricity
  • Magnetism
  • Elements
  • Atoms
  • Minerals
  • Rocks
  • Animal classification (what animals are related to each other?) Giraffes and Okapi are related
  • Animal Cells
  • Plant Cells

2. Language Arts

  • Compare and contrast two books about the same subject
  • Origins and use of a punctuation
  • Origins and meaning of word
  • Project about punctuation
  • Project about parts of speech
  • Project about metaphor or simile
  • Project about sentence structure (subject, predicate, etc.)

3. Writing

  • Write a narrative
  • Write a persuasive essay (make a commercial or an advertisement for a make belive product)
  • Write a biography about a person
  • Create a storybook on pixie or powerpoint

4. Math

  • Make a lesson on a computer based program (pixie, voki, powerpoint, etc.)
  • Research the origins of a particular skill
  • Research what jobs need math skills

5. Social Studies

    • Continents and how they are formed
    • States
    • A Culture or Group of People
    • Famous Person
    • A War
    • Government
    • Money or Trade
    • Jobs and Careers

6. PE

  • A sport's history
  • Special Rules
  • Special Records
  • How to become a pro
  • dancing
  • a famous athlete or dancer

7. Music and Art



8. Technology

9. Community Needs


Depth and Complexity instructions and questions to use for your project. Replace all "story" words with topic, and you will be able to dive more deeply into your learning.


gate_depth_and_complexity_instructions.jpg
Depth and complexity questions and descriptions.