Curriculum & Instruction Faculty Publications

Document Type

Article

Keywords

Life Cycle; Science; Second Grade; Creativity

Journal/Book/Conference Title Title

Creative Education

Volume

3

Issue

4

First Page

479

Last Page

485

Abstract

Creativity is a necessary skill for students to become problem solvers in the rapidly changing 21st century. This study’s main activity allowed students to demonstrate their content knowledge in an engaging way while also exhibiting creative strengths. Twenty-two second grade students (15 female, 7 male) of mixed ability levels at a Title 1 school produced projects using identical sets of recycled and craft items. They incorporated vocabulary words and images associated with the life cycles of four organisms: horse, dragonfly, sea turtle, and bean plant. Projects were analyzed for creative strengths as well as science concept integration. Student-made products showed vocabulary from all four life cycles, but familiar organisms (dragonfly and bean plant) were depicted more frequently. Creative strengths evidenced in student work included: elaboration, breaking boundaries, storytelling articulateness, originality, and emotional expressiveness, among others. The authors recommend teachers incorporate similar creative tasks as assessments of content learning. Additional studies integrating more creative product assessments for a longer duration to show growth over time are suggested.

Department

Department of Curriculum and Instruction

Comments

First published in Creative Education, v. 3 n. 34 (2012), pp. 479-485,10.4236/ce.2012.34073, published by Scientific Research Publishing.

Original Publication Date

8-2012

DOI of published version

10.4236/ce.2012.34073

Repository

UNI ScholarWorks, University of Northern Iowa, Rod Library

Copyright

© 2012 Angela Naomi Webb and Audrey C. Rule. The copyright holder has granted permission for posting.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Date Digital

2012

Language

EN

File Format

application/pdf

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