Second Phase of Blog project

I gave the student groups about 30 minutes to write down their best 10 (or come up with some new questions) that were understanding or application type questions. We then posted all the sheets on the bulletin board. In groups of 2 or 3, students had to pick 2 questions from all the lists of questions. They had to check with me to make sure that the question was of sufficient difficulty and was not something that had already been done before and then they put their names next to the question that they had chosen. Because I didn't check all the questions before they were posted (which saved a lot of time), it was really important to have the students check their questions with me. Some I said they just couldn't do, for a variety of reasons, some I modified slightly to make them a bit more broad in scope or cover a bit more curriculum and some I let stand just as they were. Each class ended up with quite a variation of questions. Here is the list from one of my classes with the instruction that I gave to the students.

Instructions:
1) all students in a group must work together on one computer.
2) you must access the blog to get the information to the question.
3) if you can not find enough information in the blog to answer the question you must ask permission from the teacher to go onto the internet to get additional information.
4) you must cite the blog postings you used in the blog directly with the information in your blog post.
5) you must cite any websites you have used directly with the information in your blog post.


Why do fish swim upstream? Clayton's group
Why do penguins swim but not fly when they are birds? Jamie and Shawna
Why do ice ages happen and what do you think would happen if there was one in the future? Elizabeth and Farha
What would the earth be like if the oceans were freshwater? Shawna and Jamie
How are watersheds formed? Jacob, Richard and Jeremy
Does a solar eclipse affect the tide? Elizabeth and Farha
Compare the impact between glacier, river and ocean erosion. Shania, Jake and Kyle
What makes an organism suitable to live in a tide pool? Shania, Jake and Kyle
Describe all aspects of river flow throughout its course and explain why the river flow and shape changes. Yousuf, Zhora, Samantha
Why can humans only consume freshwater? Samantha, Zhora and Yousuf
Why is there so much water in our body? Wentao, Binta, Breeze
Why is there salt in water? Jeremy's group
What is the difference between tides and waves? Liam's group
How does sunlight impact the temperature of the ocean? Wentao, Binta, Breeze
Explain why waves go white at the end of the beach. Emma, Jamie H, Evan
How does erosion impact the ocean? Richard, Jeremy, Jacob
Does the position of the sun throughout the day affect the ocean? Jamie H, Emma, Evan
How do seasons impact the ocean? Andrew's group
How does ocean pollution affect people? Liam's group
Explain how bioluminescence works and why some animals and plants have it. Maddy L's group
Explain why humans can not drink salt water. Christina, Maddy, Shay