In my Project-Based Instruction, we were told to create a project that was inquiry-based and my partner and I created a lesson that wanted to answer the question, how does climate change impact natural disasters? We first did this by addressing background information that they needed such as learning about the line of best fit and using this line as a prediction about the number of natural disasters in the year 2030. We wanted the students to understand that making a prediction required them to figure out the line of best fit and how the line of best fit can be used in real-world applications.

     After each group, split by their natural disaster, agreed upon a line of best fit, they then had to create a poster that addressed if their natural disaster was being impacted by climate change and communicate their findings later on. In order for this to be accomplished, the students needed to gather evidence that climate change was creating drastic changes for their natural disaster. In addition, the students had to find possible solutions to decrease the harm that was occurring to the natural disaster. As some students in the group were collecting data about climate change, other students in the group were creating a model about the change of natural disasters from the year 2000-2018, to illustrate how the numbers of natural disasters changed over the years.

     At the end of the three day period, the students finished up their poster at the beginning of class and did a gallery walk to each group, discussing their findings. This was important because we wanted students to feel comfortable presenting to others and to ensure that they had taken away something from the lesson. While each person presented to the groups, people had questions and wanted to understand more about the natural disaster. For example, students often asked about the difference between climate change and global warming and others were able to answer. This gave my partner and me affirmation that the students had done research about climate change. Another example of students enjoying the lesson was saying things such as “that’s cool” or “I didn’t know that” when searching up information about their natural disaster. It was nice to see them say comments in regards to what they were learning since my partner and I were able to see if the students were interested or not. Overall, I believe the students took away interesting information from the lesson we provided them over the course of the three days.