Scripture: Genesis 21-23
Learning Objectives:
- Students will review the story of Abraham, God’s Promises and Isaac.
- Students will learn Abraham sent Hagar and Ishmael away.
- Students will learn how to analyze the options available to someone in a story or in a real life situation.
- Students will participate in an activity to practice identifying and analyzing options.
Guiding Question: How can you analyze a problem to find the available options for a solution and analyze those options?
Materials: raw egg for each pair of students, empty two-liter bottles, a wide variety of found materials including several liquids
Procedure: Review the story of Abraham focusing especially on the story of Hagar and Ishmael being cast out. Discuss with the students how Abraham, Hagar and Ishmael actually had more options than the one chosen by each of them. Have students list the other options they could possibly have taken in the situation. As students give the various options, show them how to analyze each possible choice by listing the possible pros and cons of that option. Divide students into pairs. Tell them they will each be given a raw egg. They should list all of their options for packaging the egg so it will not break if dropped from a certain height. After each option, they should list the possible pros and cons. All ow the students to create their best option. (This may take more than one class period to complete.) Take the creations outside and drop them from some height (make sure you have approval to make a mess and a way to clean it after you are finished!). Check the results by the pro and con list it’s team wrote before creating it. Which teams had accurate pro/con lists? Why were some lists more accurate than others? What can they do in the future to create more accurate pro/con lists when faced with various options?
Additional Questions:
- How would you research and create an accurate pro/con list for the options to solve a current real life problem?
Supplemental Activity: Have more advanced students identify a real world problem. It can be something personal, something in their school or neighborhood or something in the news. Have them research and create a list of possible solutions and a pro/con list for each. Encourage the students to share their results with those attempting to solve the problem.