The "Counting Trees" Formative Assessment Lesson from MARS/Shell Centre is one of my favorites. I think it's open ended in an interesting way and I love that kids need to be okay with not knowing the exact right answer.
The other day I heard this story on NPR about how many trees there are in the entire world.
Of course my first thought was the FAL and how I would use this story in conjunction with that lesson. I wonder how I would structure it. Would it be a hook to the lesson or a "beyond"? What parts would I have kids listen to or read? I haven't read the Nature article yet, so I wonder what's in there.
I loved that the story went through a whole process of asking a question, making a conjecture, revising the conjecture, and so on--exactly the kind of thinking process that I want to highlight for kids.
It also raises some interesting questions about rate (how long it would take to plant 1 billion trees), density (if so much forest has been depleted, what did forests used to look like?), and large numbers (what does 3 trillion trees even mean?!)
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