In this activity, students had to imagine that they were working in an ultra-clean environment called a "clean room." But just what is such a room? How clean is it? How do they keep it clean?

In this extension, students will first be asked what they might already know about a "clean room." Some students may have a lot of knowledge about this, while others will be totally in the dark. Students will have the opportunity to learn all about "clean rooms" using a learning device called a "Jigsaw." You will need at least one copy of each of the "Working in a Clean Room" pages. There are four pages, one for each group ("Ones," "Twos," "Threes," "Fours.")

Break up the students into smaller groups of four. Each group will need to make up a list of questions that the group wants answered about clean rooms. They need at least 10 questions, and they should be written down on paper with space for answers.

Now, each group member will be given a number, from 1 to 4. Once each group member has been assigned a number, they will need to find other students with the same number and form a new group. All the ones will be in the Ones group, twos in the Twos group, etc.

Provide the "Ones" with the information sheet provided titled "Clean Room: Ones Group." A student in the Ones group will read it aloud, and then the paper can be passed around as needed. Each student needs to gather answers to the questions that their original group came up with only using the info that they learned in their "Ones" group. Do the same for the Twos group, Threes group, and Fours group.

After about 10 minutes, have all students return to their original group and attempt to answer all their original questions using what they learned in their numbered groups. Were they able to answer everything? Where could they learn more? What made this extension difficult?

Standards

This activity supports: California Academic Content Standards - English-Language Arts - Third - Reading - Reading Comprehension - Comprehension and Analysis of Grade-Level-Appropriate Text. Standard 2.2: Ask questions and support answers by connecting prior knowledge with literal information found in, and inferred from, the text.