Kim Exley

Collection Development Plan

FRIT 7134 – Spring, 2009

March 4, 2009

Part I. School Site and Learner Analysis

Ebenezer Elementary School is a part of the Effingham County community of

schools. It is located in Rincon, Georgia, just a few miles from the historic Salzburger

settlement at Ebenezer on the banks of the Savannah River. The number of certified staff

members and teachers is forty-nine, there are two administrators, and thirty-five

classified staff members. Ebenezer Elementary has a student population of 597 this year.

The majority of the school’s student population is from lower to middle class homes with

the free and reduced lunch percentage being at about thirty-five percent of the student

population. The Hispanic population has increased slightly over the past several years;

most of these students are bilingual, using English at school and Spanish in their homes.

Many of their parents speak Spanish only. Although several of the counties’ elementary

schools are Title I schools, Ebenezer Elementary does not fall into this category;

therefore, they do not receive Title I funding.

The school has recently worked to improve its focus on the implementation and

use of new technology. Twenty-four of its thirty-six classrooms, over the last two years,

have received technology upgrades and are now considered twenty-first century

classrooms. The media center is centrally located within the “hub” of the school, next to

the cafeteria and near the administrative offices. The media center does not operate on a

flexible schedule; instead, all classes have a scheduled time each week to visit the media
center. However, students are allowed to visit the media center at any time to check out

books (with their teacher’s permission, of course). Once inside the media center, students

are taught to use the online catalog (SageBrush), how to find information (in books and

online), and are allowed to check out books or just sit and read. The media specialist also

utilizes subscriptions to Brain Pop and United Streaming for use in the media center and

in classrooms.

The focus of this collection study encompasses Dewey numbers 574-592 in the

media center’s collection. The topic of these materials is ecosystems and habitats. I chose

to look at grades 3-5 as I completed this study. Most of the learners at Ebenezer

Elementary, according to their teachers and media specialist, in these grade levels are

reading at or above grade level. According to the teachers, fifty percent are at grade level,

ten to twenty percent are above grade level, and thirty to forty percent are below grade

level. Ebenezer Elementary is using the accelerated reader (AR) program this year;

however, due to system budget cuts, the BOE has decided not to purchase AR for

elementary schools next year. The media specialist is extremely upset and plans to

purchase the AR program herself with help from the school’s PTSO. She believes it is a

program that works and would rather have AR than buy new books next year.

Reading incentives are offered throughout the year as students meet their AR

goals. One of these is a “Reading Around the World” program that uses map skills to

explore the world. Students in each grade level are assigned a different county to explore

in a “center” type activity. In the spring, all students who have met at least three out of

four AR goals are allowed to participate in water day, an outside activity day with water
slides, balloons, and more. This is the yearly culminating AR event. The students that I

interviewed said that this is the best day of the entire school year.

Part II. Curriculum Review and Classroom Activities

The following Georgia Performance Standards coincide with the specified

objectives related to ecosystems and habitats for grades three through five.

S3CS1

Grade: 3

Description: S3CS1 Students will be aware of the importance of curiosity, honesty, openness, and
skepticism in science and will exhibit these traits in their own efforts to understand how the world works.

Elements:

a. Keep records of investigations and observations and do not alter the records later.
b. Offer reasons for findings and consider reasons suggested by others.
c. Take responsibility for understanding the importance of being safety conscious.

S3L1

Grade: 3

Description: S3L1 Students will investigate the habitats of different organisms and the dependence of
organisms on their habitat.

Elements:

a. Differentiate between habitats of Georgia (mountains, marsh/swamp, coast, Piedmont, Atlantic Ocean)
and the organisms that live there.
b. Identify features of green plants that allow them to live and thrive in different regions of Georgia.
c. Identify features of animals that allow them to live and thrive in different regions of Georgia.
d. Explain what will happen to an organism if the habitat is changed.

S4L1

Grade: 4

Description: S4L1 Students will describe the roles of organisms and the flow of energy within an
ecosystem.

Elements:

a. Identify the roles of producers, consumers, and decomposers in a community.

b. Demonstrate the flow of energy through a food web/food chain beginning with sunlight and including
producers, consumers, and decomposers.
c. Predict how changes in the environment would affect a community (ecosystem) of organisms.
d. Predict effects on a population if some of the plants or animals in the community are scarce or if there
are too many.

S4L2

Grade: 4
Description: S4L2 Students will identify factors that affect the survival or extinction of organisms such as
adaptation, variation of behaviors (hibernation), and external features (camouflage and protection).

Elements:

a. Identify external features of organisms that allow them to survive or reproduce better than organisms that
do not have these features (for example: camouflage, use of hibernation, protection, etc.).
b. Identify factors that may have led to the extinction of some organisms.

S5E1

Grade: 5

Description: S5E1 Students will identify surface features of the Earth caused by constructive and
destructive processes.

Elements:

a. Identify surface features caused by constructive processes.

• Deposition (deltas, sand dunes, etc.)

• Earthquakes
• Volcanoes
• Faults

b. Identify and find examples of surface features caused by destructive processes.

• Erosion (water—rivers and oceans, wind)

• Weathering
• Impact of organisms
• Earthquake
• Volcano

c. Relate the role of technology and human intervention in the control of constructive and destructive
processes.
Examples include, but are not limited to

• Seismological studies
• Flood control (dams, levees, storm drain management, etc.)
• Beach reclamation (Georgia coastal islands)

S5L4

Grade: 5

Description: S5L4 Students will relate how microorganisms benefit or harm larger organisms.

Elements:

a. Identify beneficial microorganisms and explain why they are beneficial.

b. Identify harmful microorganisms and explain why they are harmful.
 Activity No. 1: This activity is a classroom unit that would work with any of the

grade levels mentioned in this review. The unit is titled Georgia Regions and Habitats

Writing Unit, and the complete unit, along with objectives, assessments, and material

needs, can be found using the following URL:

https://www.georgiastandards.org/_layouts/GeorgiaStandards/UnitBuilder/DWPublicPre

view.aspx?WID=89&obj=104179&mode=1. The book series needed for this unit, the

Yumion series, is part of the materials order section of this assignment.

Activity No. 2: In the following fourth grade activity, students use glass jars to

create earthworm habitats. Over a period of days, they observe and record the changes

that occur in this tiny ecosystem as the worms move the earth and leaves to make their

new homes suitable. The URL for this lesson follows:

https://www.georgiastandards.org/_layouts/GeorgiaStandards/UnitBuilder/DWPublicPre

view.aspx?WID=89&obj=70607&mode=1

Activity No. 3: This is a third grade assignment that could involve a field trip to

Sapelo Island. The field trip is optional, however. The Sapelo website could be used for

information gathering if the field trip is not an option. Students must “discover” a new

organism on the island, and give it distinct characteristics, features, and behaviors. They

will report to the class with information and a visual aid about their new creature. The

following is the lesson URL:

https://www.georgiastandards.org/_layouts/GeorgiaStandards/UnitBuilder/DWPublicPre

view.aspx?WID=91&obj=89948&mode=1
III. Quantitative and Qualitative Evaluations

I began with a visual inspection of the collection. For a collection that has not

been weeded in ten years, most of the books appeared to be in great shape. The books

that I pulled ranged in copyright age from 1980 to 2006 with the average copyright year

for this collection being 1997. The media center contains a total of 338 books in its

Dewey section 574-592. The majority of these are non-fiction, including many books

with colorful images and interesting facts about different ecosystems and habitats. I was

impressed with the “fun” titles like the Magic School Bus series and The Cat in the Hat’s

take on the rainforest. The audiovisual section of this collection contains about 45 videos

(two of these were from The Magic School Bus series), and 1 DVD. Topics for these

include rainforests, oceans, woodlands, ponds, and plant and animal habitats. The

collection, however, is lacking multicultural/foreign language selections. I was unable to

locate any of these.

Next, I wanted to find out why students choose these books? Is it because they are

AR books and they need to read them to collect points or are they genuinely interested in

these topics? Accelerated reader books are identified with colored dots, so it is easy to tell

which books are AR and which are not. Upon inspecting this collection, I discovered that

about forty to fifty percent of the 338 books are AR books. The average reading level,

according to the color coded chart in the media center, is 2.9 – 6.0., so this collection is

compatible with the student population. The media clerk checked the data about

checkouts for this collection. We discovered that the books that are not AR books are

checked out just as often as those that are AR books; therefore, this would indicate that

students are reading books on these topics both for AR points and for pleasure. She says
that the students often choose these books because they have such beautiful images that

go along with the reading. Also, elementary students just have a natural curiosity about

science.

Of course, teacher needs always need to be considered when evaluating or

changing a collection. Teachers at Ebenezer Elementary would like to see the addition of

Ebooks to the collection. They would like these for multiple topics and subjects, not just

ecosystems. They are concerned that there are not any Science magazine subscriptions

for the students in the media center, so titles like Your Big Backyard, National

Geographic Kids, and Astronomy were mentioned as possible additions. Also, teachers

would like to have interactive software for the students to use with science topics like

ecosystems and habitats. They feel that these can be hands-on topics and that there must

be computer software that will allow students to virtually explore these areas of the

world. Finally, the teachers to whom I spoke agreed that there needs to be a selection of

multicultural/Spanish titles for the Hispanic population of students to read if they choose.

Finally, I wanted to see how often the students are using the books in this

collection. The media center usually has around 600 checkouts a day. I was in the media

center for this study for about three hours. During this time, four classes visited to check

out books. The ecosystem/habitat collection was indeed a popular section with the

students; many browsed through even if they did not choose a book from this area.

Overall, from the four classes, twelve books were checked out from this collection.

Of the 338 books in the collection I studied, 192 have been checked out during this

school year. These findings indicate that this is a popular section of the school media

center.
IV. Budget Summary