An understanding of slope is important for students in the middle grades and beyond. It is equally important for students to experience the relevance of mathematics in daily life. This lesson helps students self-assess their understanding of the mathematics and science that are part of the On Fire unit.
In this final lesson of the unit, students complete their fire-wise property sketch and test their fire‑wise IQ. In particular, this lesson contains several assessment opportunities which will allow you to determine your students' level of understanding of the mathematics in this unit. Depending on which parts of this unit you have used in your classroom, you may choose to use some or all of these assessment ideas; you may choose to modify these assessments to better suit your needs; or, you may decide to create your own assessments.
Distribute copies of the Burning Questions quiz. (Note that the second page of this activity sheet contains the answers to the quiz, which you may not want to give to students.)
There are at least three different ways that this quiz can be used. As a learning activity and summary of this unit, allow students to work in pairs and answer the questions; then, review the answers with the class. Alternatively, you can allow students to complete the quiz individually and check their answers with the answer sheet. The questions and answers can stimulate thoughts about the content of this unit, and it can serve as the impetus for students writing a summary about what they learned. Finally, the quiz can be given as a formal assessment, which students complete for a grade.
After completing the quiz, require students to complete the following:
- Create a sketch of a property and explain how it could be made fire‑wise. At the end of the How Steep Can You Be lesson, students measured the percent slope and created the site plan of a property. Using their work on the How Steep Can You Be activity sheet, allow students to describe how the property could be made fire wise. In particular, they should indicate which trees and shrubs should be pruned or removed; they should describe how the slope of the property affects planning; and they should indicate any other changes that would help to protect any buildings from a wildfire threat. Putting together all of the information that they learned in this unit, students should make any modifications to their sketch that may be necessary.
- Write a brief summary about the mathematics that they learned in this unit. This summary could include any of the following:
- Probability
- Percent Slope
- Distance and Area of Defensible Space Zones
- Distance between Vegetation, Depending on Slope
- Equations
- Line of Best Fit, and Correlation
It is likely that students will mention several of these topics when discussing how they will make their property fire‑wise. Therefore, you may want to phrase this question as, "Describe any mathematics learned in this unit that you did not mention above."
To conclude this unit, return the students’ work with appropriate feedback. On the day that you return the work, you may want to provide a brief review to the class. One way to do this is to compile a list of all the math that students noted in their final assignment. The class will often be amazed at how many different things they learned while working on this project. Another possibility is to read the summaries of several students aloud to the class.
