1. Language: connectives to express time, past tense
2. Vocabulary: words used for investigation, fossils
3. Text types: explanation texts, journal
4. Generic skills

• Critical thinking
• Creativity
• Communication
• Collaboration

Lessons

Teaching & Learning activities/ Steps

EC Lesson 1
The extinction of dinosaurs

Activity 1: Watching a video clip in planetarium about the extinction of dinosaurs
Teachers intentionally took students to the planetarium because the main task was related to the location.
Before the students watched the video, they were told to pay attention to how the dinosaurs lived, how they died and what happened to their bodies afterwards.
  
Activity 2: Group discussion
After the video, students formed groups of 4 and discuss the following questions:

1. What was life like for the dinosaurs?
2. Describe two ways the dinosaurs die.
3. What happened to a dinosaur’s body after it died?

Teachers then invited some students from different groups to share with the class what they had been discussed.
 
Assignment
Students were asked to do further reading and research on the 3 questions discussed during the lesson. The rationale for doing this:

1. Promoting self-learning
2. Those who were interested in the topic could read more about the subject.
3. Allowing time for those who were not familiar with the topic to absorb what had been introduced in the lesson and equip themselves with knowledge about the topic.
4. What constitutes challenging subject matter will differ from student to student depending on what they already know and are able to do (Winebrenner, 1992). Those who did not shine in the first lesson were not necessarily the low ability students. It might be due to the fact that they were not familiar with the topic. For motivated students who were unfamiliar with the topic, being able to do some research would enable them to take more active part in the next lesson.

EC Lesson 2
Bones under bathtub

Activity 1: Sharing of findings about the 3 questions explored during EC lesson 1
Sharing in pairs → Sharing in groups of 4 → Individual presentation
  

Activity 2: Whose bones were those?

Source: Apple Daily (7 November, 2011) Bones fragments found under bathtub (Part 1) Bone fragments were discovered by some repair technicians while removing the bathtub to fix the leakage. The case was reported to the police.

Students were shown a piece of local news about some bones discovered by a worker in the bathroom under the bathtub while refurbishing work was being carried out.  He was terrified and reported the incident to the police.
After reading the first part of the news, students were asked to discuss the following questions:

1. Whose bones are those?
2. Why were there bones? What happened?
3. How should we start the investigation? (Who to ask? What to read? What to do?)

Before the EC lesson, teachers had gone through the section about ‘how scientists study fossils’ in the textbook (My Pals are Here! 6A).

After the discussion, teachers showed students the second part of the news article. The bones were not human bones. They were animal bones.

EC Lesson 3
A mail from a construction worker

Main task: A mail from a construction worker
The students were told the following:
The school has received a mail package from a man who claimed to be one of the construction workers involved in the planetarium project.

He explained that in Phase one of the construction work, they found some bones one day. They did not dig the whole thing up because the supervisor said that the school would sue them if they could not meet the deadline. They just buried the bones and pulled down the planetarium. That was why the location of the existing planetarium was slightly adjusted from the original plan. They did not want to build the planetarium on top of the bones.
He also sent the school 2 photos.

The students were curious about what that was and they started to discuss the incident right away.

Students were asked to discuss the same set of questions of the precious EC lesson.

1. Whose bones are those?
2. Why were there bones? What happened?
3. How should we start the investigation? (Who to ask? What to read? What to do?)

Writing Lesson

Writing task: My journal
The students were asked to complete the following writing task:
You were told that before the construction of the planetarium, some fossils were found years ago in your school. Write your enquiry to record what you have done and your reflection.

Students were given three questions to think about:    

1. What do you know about the fossils? What are the sources of your information? 
   How do you feel?
2. How do you explain what you have seen? What questions pop up in your mind?
   What is your opinion?
3. What are you going to do in order to verify the evidence and draw a conclusion?

Students first completed the graphic organizer

1. Fossils found
2. Any questions?
3. Your opinion
4. What you do
5. Your conclusion

Students wrote up their journals.