1. Going Green! A Science Unit on Going Green Using a UBD Format Pace University ED 620 July 2009 Professor Sal Zimmerman Joe Baird, Ilana Grossman, Candice Kim, Stephanie Kirby, Kenneth Kroog
2. An Introduction to Our Unit The goal of this unit is to offer students access to the curriculum through the lens of “Going Green.” Today, environmental awareness and the concept of “green” living is all around us: in the media, where we buy groceries, where we chose to live and how we interact with our environments. This unit will open students up to issues and ideas associated with the Green movement, while exploring the standard content areas with this theme.
3. Our Classroom Fourth Grade Students with EBD 12:1:1 Differentiation Verbal and visual directions and writing prompts Opportunity to draw or find images instead of writing Different types of questions (multiple choice, fill in, short answer) Group work, pair work, and individual work
4. Essential Questions What is the environment? What effects do humans have on the environment? How can groups of people work together to achieve a common goal? What can we do as a community to limit a negative impact on our environment? What is pollution? What causes it?
5. Students Will Be Able to: Identify man-made and natural environments Describe how man-made and natural environments interact Define and identify land, water, air, light, and noise pollution Define and identify the impact of reducing, reusing, and recycling Create pollution solutions for school and home Collect school recycling data, graph it, and project next year’s recycling rates Research data on recycling and create a powerpoint presentation Work together to plan and execute an assembly
6. Standards: 4.PS.1 Explore, examine, and make observations about a social problem or mathematical situation 4.PS.3 Interpret information correctly, identify the problem, and generate possible solutions 4.PS.7 Represent problem situations in oral, written, concrete, pictorial, and graphical forms 4.PS.13 Work in collaboration with others to solve problems 4.S.2 Collect data using observations, surveys, and experiments and record appropriately 4.S.3 Represent data using tables, bar graphs, and pictographs 4th grade, Science Process Skills: 7.1a Humans depend on their natural and constructed environments. 7.1b Over time humans have changed their environment by cultivating crops and raising animals, creating shelter, using energy, manufacturing goods, developing means of transportation, changing populations, and carrying out other activities. 7.1c Humans, as individuals or communities, change environments in ways that can be either helpful or harmful for themselves and other organisms.
7. Students Will Know: That people can work together to make positive change That they can change the world around them How to graph numbers in real world situations That garbage can be used to make usable items How pollution effects various places and people
8. Students Will Understand That: Recycling is important and our individual and community actions affect the environment around us. They can make positive changes within their school by working as a team. There are different kinds of pollution, positive and negative. There are varying degrees of effects of pollution on our environment and there are ways humans can limit these effects by being knowledgeable.
9. Content Pre-Assessment Discussion surrounding the word “environment” and informal assessment in groups regarding natural and man-made environments will indicate how much our students know Final Project Powerpoint Presentation including definition of recycling, examples of items that can be recycling, recorded recycling rates, and projected rates. Unit Calendar Our unit will cover science, citizenship, writing, reading, art, library research, and computers
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11. Assessments Worksheets Short Quizzes Rubrics for Projects Informal Questioning Writing Prompts Whole Group Discussion
12. Name_______________________________ Date:_____________ What did we learn today about Air Pollution? Define Air Pollution: Circle anything in this list that causes air pollution: driving a car factories reading a book burning wood in stoves or chimneys sleeping smoking cigarettes List three things that you can do to prevent air pollution: 1.____________________________________________________ 2.____________________________________________________ 3.____________________________________________________ List three ways that air pollution affects humans: 1.____________________________________________________ 2.____________________________________________________ 3.____________________________________________________
14. Name: Date: Below draw or find a picture of two places where you can find a man-made and natural environment very close to each other. Example: Some playgrounds are on the sandy part of a beach. The playground is man-made. The sand and water of the beach is natural.
15. Name: Date: Below list three places where you can find a man-made and natural environment very close to each other. Example: Some playgrounds are on the sandy part of a beach. The playground is man-made. The sand and water of the beach is natural. Place one: Place two: _____________i s man-made. _____________is natural. Place one: Place two: _____________i s man-made. _____________is natural. Place one: Place two: _____________i s man-made. _____________is natural.
16. For the lesson plan Fun and Useful Ways to Reuse Materials, the students understanding will be assessed by a group project and presentation. During the presentation, the teams will to explain to the class how their new object can be used and how they changed the material so that it can serve the new function. Below is the Rubric that will be used to score the teams’ success in meeting this expectation during the presentation. Team Presentations of Created Objects Rubric (5 points)
