In there a third question you have for the essential questions part of your unit? And for your performance tasks, will students have the opportunity to use research materials such as texts and/or the web in order to make and food chain and label a diagram of cycle matter. Six grade students can hopefully create a list for performance task number two, but for the first and third task, they will need some form of reference to go off of right? Thank you for your hard work! 

Is there a third essential question? If you need help thinking of one, try and take a question out of one of your big ideas. I think your first question is a little to broad, might need to specify it a little bit, however since they are in middle school it might be easier having broad questions. I really like your big ideas, I think they directly correlate to your big ideas which is how I think they should be. Based on your big ideas I think that you could make one of your essential questions about humans effect on ecosystems. 

Overall, I liked your ideas for your essential questions but think they may be a little to difficult for a middle school student to understand. I think if you can may be narrow down and simplify your question that they would be perfect for a middle school student to understand. I do like your ideas or your big ideas and thought they go along perfectly with your unit topic an what the  students will eventually be getting out of the entire unit.

I think that with 6th grade for one of the performance task you can have a research component. They are more independent in 6th grade and you can give them more freedom to explore. I think you can go into more detail on some of your ideas and questions. This is a great foundation. I like that this unit includes how humans can impact ecosystems. I think you could really build on that in general in the classroom. 

Like my classmates already asked, do you have a third question? And for the first one I think that's too broad. What is "Everything"?. I really like your big ideas and your performance tasks. It's going to be a really good Unit plan, I would just focus on working on the essential questions! And to add a third 

For your third essential question, you can ask "What is the importance of the food chain?" or something along those lines relating to the direct effects of ecosystems. I think this unit is very appropriate for the grade level and can be addressed in various ways. You have a good approach based on the essential questions, big ideas, and tasks. 

I think the question "how is everything connected?" is too broad a statement. I think you should also make sure your students know what ecosystems are just in case it may not be something they learned in their elementary school. I found that many of the lessons there's an inclusion of "how can we ..." questions or big ideas which I think is great. To show kids how they can be involved and invested in the rehabilitation and preservation of their community, ecosystem, nature etc.

I really like your topic! I think you can go into a bit more detail for your questions but i enjoy how everything flows together. For the questions maybe you can add something about food chains? As that is in your big ideas and is also an activity in the performance tasks. Overall great job!

This topic is really interesting. However, I think that your essential questions are a little too broad even though this is an older grade I think you should make sure they are aware of what "everything" is exactly and what they are connected to? Your big ideas however are really creative and are important to be taught to students of this age particularly. 

Kaityln and Nicolette,

I think your performance tasks are interesting. However, I had instructed you to create student facing directions for completing them. I don't see those. Am I missing something?