Written+Description

The purpose of this multi-media Traveling Trunk is to supplement a fourth grade unit on endangered species and promote student engagement. Students will be exposed to a variety of multi-media resources, including printed and online materials, artifact examples of endangered species, images, and audio files. By viewing the resources in this trunk, students will learn about various endangered and extinct animals, their habitats, and the causes of their endangerment. The physical trunk will be housed in the media center, available for check out by teachers. Teachers will partner with the media specialist to deliver the contents of the trunk via team teaching and media center lessons. Users will be able to access electronic resources via the wiki-site from a link on the school’s homepage; however, a disc containing these resources and links will be available in the trunk as well.
 * Purpose and Distribution Plan:**

The target audience for this Traveling Trunk is fourth grade science classes. Because students of any age will find the topic and information useful and engaging, the materials and resources contained in this trunk can be used for acceleration with younger students and remediation with older students.
 * Target Audience and Usefulness:**

//S4L1.// Students will describe the roles of organisms and the flow of energy within an ecosystem. c. Predict how changes in the environment would affect a community (ecosystem) of organisms. d. Predict effects on a population if some of the plants or animals in the community are scarce or if there are too many. //S4L2.// Students will identify factors that affect the survival or extinction of organisms such as adaptation, variation of behaviors (hibernation), and external features (camouflage and protection). a. Identify external features of organisms that allow them to survive or reproduce better than organisms that do not have these features (for example: camouflage, use of hibernation, protection, etc.). b. Identify factors that may have led to the extinction of some organisms.
 * Curricular Objectives Addressed:**

Traveling Trunks are a wonderful resource for any any grade level or subject. Teachers, media specialists, and technology specialists can work together to gather sources and lessons on a variety of topics, and continue to add to the project as new resources become available. Each trunk should include appropriate artifacts, an annotated bibliography of printed resources available in the school’s media center, and a list of learning activities. Electronic resources should be available on a wiki or disc, these resources should include websites, images, audio, and video files. Once the trunk is created, the classroom teacher will be able to focus on differentiating the instruction to meet individual student’s needs, rather than building an entire unit. Each trunk can contain materials for various grade-levels as the curriculum overlaps. Teachers can accelerate or remediate students as necessary.
 * Project Versatility:**

As always, organizing our meeting times was challenging. Each of us has work and family obligations, and scheduling a time when each of us was available was difficult. We communicated via Course Den email and Wimba chat. Another challenge was gathering artifacts of endangered and extinct animals, since possession of these items is unlawful! We were able to overcome this challenge by using items that pre-dated these laws, borrowing items from a family member who works for the Forestry Department, and using “models” of extinct animals.
 * Challenges:**

We all agreed that selecting our own groups was an important aspect of the success of our group. Each of us has experience working with elementary aged students, which made the selection of the academic standard easier. We were able to work to our strengths and collaborate in a meaningful way. We also learned more about instructional design and collaboration. At the beginning of the project, we were intimidated by the amount of work; however, by collaborating we found the task was not difficult to complete.
 * Lessons Learned:**