The 5 E's and Me

I have used the 5 E template for planning science lessons for the past three years, and I believe it has really forced me to be more creative when approaching content. The model provides opportunities to deliver hands-on inquiry based lessons by first engaging the students and drawing their interest to the topic before allowing them to manipulate materials and make observations of their own. I like the fact that the students have an opportunity to explore a concept and make discoveries on their own prior to discussion or reading a selection of text. This really provides them with a context to apply the new vocabulary or concept and will make more of a concrete connection aiding in retention levels. This type of model also works well with students who are more visual or kinesthetic learners as it plays into their learning style.

The curriculum that we use in our county outlines the 5 E's and provides activities and lessons in that format. The STEM lesson I most recently outlined involved the students creating a "roller coaster" using a 2 meter piece of foam pipe insulation tubing and rolling a marble through it to calculate the speed of the marble. The students were required to put a loop in the coaster and determine the minimum speed the marble had to travel in order to complete the loop. I was first introduced to this lesson in a workshop I attended a couple of years ago and have adapted it to use in my classroom with several variations along the way. The difficult part of implementing this lesson is time as it may take two or even three class periods to complete, but the understanding and practical knowledge the students take away from the lesson is well worth the time.