Curriculum

Curriculum and Evaluation Materials

SimForest Teacher's Guide - [ HTML Version]
Sample lessons and teaching tips for using the SimForest simulation and field trips to learn about forests and trees.

[ MSWord version Mac 5.X / Win 97]

Esther Shartar's Div III (senior thesis)
"Writing an Inquiry Based Curriculum for Forest Ecology that Uses a Computer Simuation of Forest Dynamics as a Tool for Learning"
[ MSWord version Mac 5.X / Win 97]

Student Inquiry Worksheet [HTML version] [MSWord version]

Lesson Plan Template [HTML version][MSWord version]

Daily SimForest Teacher Journal Suggestions [HTML version] [MSWord version]

Inquiry Skills Pre-Post Tests

Forest_fish_question.doc

Forest_flower_ques.doc

Forest_worm_question.doc

Pre-Post test administration instructions

2001 MCAS Science Frameworks [MSWord version]

(See the Software Download page for software documentation.)

Curriculum Overview

SimForest is a tool not a teacher. It does not contain curricular elements such as instructions, prompts, or questions. In has attractive graphics that appeared to draw students in to using the model during initial trials. It allows students to make changes to a plot's soil, climate, seed pool and trees. It provides data, and graphing tools to help analyze the data. But, it does not give students any clues or suggestions about how to use any of the features or information.

At first, this lack of structure may appear to be desirable because it gives students opportunities to pursue their own questions in an open-ended way. However, in our initial tests of the software, we found that without guidance and with limited time it was often difficult for students to come up with interesting answerable questions.

Framing a question may be the first step in the inquiry process, but it is sometimes the most difficult to master. When beginning to work with a new tool or subject, students often lack the background knowledge, confidence, and experience required to form good questions on their own. In addition, teachers, who may themselves be unfamiliar with the program, concepts, and the inquiry cycle, may feel more comfortable leading activities with SimForest if the software is accompanied by curricular materials. For all of these reasons it became apparent early on that the SimForest program should not stand on its own. In order to achieve its potential as an inquiry tool, it should be accompanied by scaffolding (e.g. questions, activities and suggestions that help provide structure and guide students through the inquiry process).