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During a lesson about how plants respond to stimuli (tropisms), I showed them several pictures that I found online as examples to help them understand the concept. I challenged them to try to find examples on their way home, in their yard or garden and to take pictures of them with their cellphones, since it is a fast and practical way to obtain and share information. I explained that these genuine examples of tropisms around them would be their "legacy", since I would use them to explain this topic to my students next year. They had to forward these pictures to my e-mail address so I could upload them to the FDS website.
This was a great activity since it not only allowed me to assess their understanding of tropisms, but they could relate what they learnt with their everyday life and make sense of the world that surrounds them. They also understood that their learning process was not limited by the physical classroom since they could show their comprehension of the topics in a remote way. In some of their e-mails where they attached the pictures they explained the type of tropism and how they came to that conclusion or asked me how to make sense of what they were finding. This was not a compulsory activity, but they were extremely happy to see their examples on the website and to have "a part of them" as reference material for future students. You can find examples below of some of the pictures that were sent. I will definitely try it again next year with topics related to the natural world.
This activity promoted reflective learning. My students were able to find examples of their own and integrate their formal learning with their informal learning process.