Thursday, March 31, 2011

Eagle Evolution: An Inquiry with Prezi


More and more, I'm seeing the power of Prezi for teaching well today, including teaching science by inquiry. Over the last week, I developed a Prezi-based lesson on eagle evolution for teaching to a local middle school. I'm really pleased with how the lesson came out on Prezi.

The lesson uses 4 species of sea eagles, including the bald eagle, to help 7th graders begin to grasp how variety in a population can lead to speciation over a long period of time. The students responded well to the lesson, and I think part of the reason is how easy it was to make the lesson image-based. The students jumped right into their research, using laptops, and were able to find evidence about the differences in the environment and traits between eagle species. I was also pleased with how easy it was to adapt the lesson between classes, since it was a lesson I'd never taught. The school is on a testing schedule; so, their teacher is going to finish it up today when I can't be there. With Prezi, all he needed is the link, and he'll be off and running to teach the lesson.