Team Members: Corey Wallace, Tawn Gillihan, Nuong Nguyen, Jeff Kitts

Piaget Scenario: You are a recreation leader in a structured elementary afterschool

program, hired because of your specialization in nature studies. You are about to start a
unit on marine life. As a group, construct an instructional approach in keeping with the
Cognitive Development theory. Be sure to justify why these activities and approaches
meet the basic tenets of the theory.

Piaget Scenario: Marine Life Unit

In Piaget’s preoperational stage, it is important for the students to be able to explore

their different senses through hands-on activities to actively construct their knowledge.
According to Kamill and DeVries in Learning and Instruction: Theory Into Practice
“Direct teaching of ideas stifles children’s initiative in the construction of knowledge” (p.
286). Instead, teachers should scaffold students’ learning. For instance, since students
at the age of 5 and 6 are still learning language, teachers can provide adjectives and
word banks. In the concrete operational stage, teachers can ask probing questions to
help students think critically in addition to providing activities that will help guide
students to higher level of thinking.

The approach is for the lessons to be discovery based. Lessons are experiments with
physical objects, movement, social exchange, and reflection. The interactive lessons
allow children to exercise autonomy, have social interaction in a psychologically safe
environment, and develop curiosity, initiative, and confidence in learning (Gredler,
2009). Furthermore, social interaction and discussion helps clear up any
misconceptions the students might have (p. 298).

These lessons below are intended to be interactive and create the opportunity for
logical operations, ideation, disequilibrium, and social exchange.

Preoperational Stage: (Age 5-6, Kindergarten)

Lesson 1: Five Senses (Kindergarten)

 Goal of Instruction: Students explore the five senses through hands-on activities.

 Activities: Observe different fishes using a magnify glass. Touch different

objects, like seaweed, starfish, shell, sea urchin). Smell different items (herbs,
coffee, shrimp). Taste something salty, sour, sweet, and bitter. Listen to different
ocean animals’ sounds (dolphin, sea otter, whale).

 Small group discussion:

o How did the object look different using a magnify glass?

o Did the objects feel smooth, hard, rough, or bumpy?

o Did it smell good or bad?

 o Did it taste salty, sour, sweet, or bitter?

o Was it a loud or soft sound?

Concrete Operational Stage (age 7-12, Grades 1-6th)

Lesson: Marine mammals versus fish (Grades 1-2)

 Activity: Students pretend they are dolphins, marine mammals. One side of the
classroom is considered air and the rest of classroom is imagined to be
underwater. The teacher places grapes or crackers in various locations in the
imagined underwater area. Students have to hold their breath and can’t use
their hands while fetching a cracker or grape on a napkin to bring back to air side
of the classroom to eat.

 Small group discussion:

 What’s the difference between fish and dolphins?

 What is it like to hold your breath?

 Do fish have to hold their breath?

o How do they breathe?

 Are there other marine mammals?

Lesson: Classification of Sea Life (Grades 3-4)

 Goal of Instruction: Classify sea life according to the category/categories each

animal fits into, using a list of sea life and a list of categories.

 Activity: Matching worksheets, word search puzzles, True/False quizzes, connect

the dots

 Small group discussion:

o Can sea animals fit into more than one category?

o What animals are very small? What animals are very large?

o Do all sea animals swim? Can you name a sea animal that doesn’t swim?

o How do different types of sea animals defend themselves?

Lesson: How do waves form? (Grades 5-6)

 Activity: Tub with about 3 inches of water. One side of the tub propped up by
books, so the tub has a shore on the bottom of the tub. The students have to
make waves without touching the water.

 Small group discussion:

o How do waves happen?

o What do waves look like?

o If you blow lightly on the water do you see ripples?

 What are the ripples?

 How are the ripples different from the water around them?

 How much space is between the ripples (wavelength, height,

trough)?

o Besides wind, what else might cause a wave?