This is an extended case study of an entire 15-hour investigation of the water cycle to give users of this site a feel for the flow of a responsive unit. There is a lot of material here. We suggest you get an overview and perhaps work partway through the extended case study, then return to the remainder later. We assume you are working through the PD area of the website in the suggested sequence.

Bonnie launched her fifth graders' exploration of the water cycle with the following question:

One night it rains. When you go to school the next day, you notice a large puddle of water on the driveway. Later that day, when leaving school, you notice that the puddle is gone. What could have happened to the puddle?

Shown below is a nodal representation of students' exploration. Each node represents an important focus for students. Bold arrows show the actual sequence of major discussion points or activities. Moving from one node to the next represents a significant transition in what students were paying attention to. Smaller arrows diverging from each node remind the viewer that Bonnie could have made other next move decisions, including following up on other productive ideas in the classroom.

Each node is linked to video clips showcasing important student discussions, teacher input on the rationale for next moves, scans of student journals, and so forth; all to 'flesh out' the enactment for the user.

We have found that many student ideas and/or contexts are common across classrooms, although how they come up is always unique. Thus, other implementations might show different nodal topics or a different sequence of similar nodes. Click on the first node to start exploring Bonnie's implementation.