What is your favorite lesson, project or activity? Why?

A favorite lesson every year is when I teach the Desert Region. We study this region from a Native American perspective and think about how the Pueblo Indians met their basic needs of food, transportation, shelter, clothing, traditions, and others based on the natural resources. The students are always amazed at how the Pueblo Indians were able to survive and enjoy life in the desert. After studying desert animals, each student selects a desert animal to do a research report on. In summary, the students use color coded index cards to take notes from books and a website about what the animal eats, it's habitat, enemies, ways it defends itself, and other interesting facts. Then I spend time on teaching the students how to organize those notes and they write well thought out sentences and paragraphs. At the end of the process and after a lot of hard work each student has a well-written research report on a desert animal that they should be very proud of. The students then make a model of the animal in art class and a habitat in science class. We work on presentation skills in the classroom and then we invite families to the Desert Zoo! The students are dressed as zoologists and they present their findings of the desert animal they studied. It is a great student centered event!