Danah Brown
CI3110 Social Studies in Elementary School
September 26, 2005
My Environment and me
Grade 4
Theme: Natural Resources
Goals, Objectives and Standards:
Social Studies
1.01Locate in absolute and relative terms major landforms, bodies of water and natural resources in <st1:State><st1:place>North Carolina</st1:place></st1:State>.
1.04 Evaluate ways the people of <st1:State><st1:place>North Carolina</st1:place></st1:State> used. Modified and adapted to the physical environment, past and present.
4.03 Explain the importance of responsible citizenship and identify ways
Technology
2.02 Plan and use two criteria to search prepared databases to locate and organize information for content assignments.
Standard 4: Elementary teachers have a broad knowledge and understanding of the major concepts in social studies.
Indicator 6: Teachers understand basic geographic concepts and how they can be integrated including: Map, globe and chart skills, Environmental Issues and Concerns.
Indicator 8: Teachers have knowledge of history and historical concepts including: Cause and effect, Continuity and change.
Context:
This lesson will help 4th grade students learn about NC natural resources and how the environment has been changed by use of these natural resources. They will also learn how we as NC citizens can help to conserve our natural resources. This lesson can be used as a one day lesson or a week of short lessons.
Materials:
Stuffed black bear, an apple or a sweet potato and a piece of cotton or a piece of wood, poster board, outline of North Carolina, access to internet, ball, worksheets, horizons 4th grade textbook, paper, scissors.
Focus, Review and interest builders:
Begin class with three of the material items such as the black bear, the apple and the piece of cotton sitting on display in front of the class. Allow the children to get curious and then ask them what do these three things have in common? After letting them guess and discuss for a few moments tell them that these items are all resources in <st1:State><st1:place>North Carolina</st1:place></st1:State>. Let them ponder on that for a few minutes meanwhile have the children form a circle for a quick review game on cause and effect which are very important terms in this lesson. The game directions are: 1. players sit in circle 2. The first player holds the ball and says a cause (ex: When they cut down all the trees….) 3. The player then tosses the ball to another player. The player who catches the ball has to complete the sentence with an effect (ex: the bears lost their home) 4. If the player completes the sentence then he/she starts a new one. If the player cannot complete the sentence the ball goes back to the person who had it previously and so on.
Lesson Development:
Major concepts and vocabulary: Natural Resource, how humans affect them and what we can do to conserve them. The students will be given a handout Vocabulary worksheet#1 with terms they will need to know and they will be given few minutes in small groups to look them up in the text, a dictionary or the internet.
Main ideas and content: Talk about the major natural resources in <st1:State><st1:place>North Carolina</st1:place></st1:State> such as: tobacco, cotton, sweet potatoes etc. Discuss the causes of things that affect the environment like industry/pollution, humans/waste, consumption/crops, urban sprawl/endangered animals, etc. Discuss some different agencies and or people they may know who work to help conserve our resources in <st1:State><st1:place>North Carolina</st1:place></st1:State>. Give them worksheet#2 on Cause and Effect called Our Environment to do with their groups.
Questions: Ask the children to be thinking of ways we can help to conserve and take care of our natural resources and why should we do that. Have them to do Worksheet #3 Humans and Their Environment where you name a natural resource and then name ways it is used and the ways it can be protected and conserved. For extra help on this worksheet allow them to use the internet approved sites for information.
Skills: Worksheets, searching for several different items on the computer and printing and using this information for worksheets and booklet.
Strategies: Allow the children to discuss the worksheets and things they are finding in small groups. Make sure to group the children so that everyone is getting to participate and walk around and help as often as possible. Everything will be done in small groups except the map with resources and the focus activity and these will be done as a whole class.
Learner Differences: Ideas for gearing up an activity are on the bottom of the worksheets and can be elaborated on for example: on the bottom of the Humans and Their Environment worksheet it suggests that you list reasons, on the back of the paper, why natural resources can be good for its people and economy. To gear down these activities allow the students to print and use pictures to explain their ideas.
Activities: Activity#1 – The students will be given 4 sheets of paper and they will be instructed to make a small booklet. On the cover they are to draw an outline of NC and on the inside pages find pictures from the recommended websites that contain natural resources, conservation and protection ideas, people being good citizens in the community, etc.
Activity#2 – The citizenship worksheet #4 can be done individually for assessment or homework Act as a Responsible Citizen is a graphic organizer that encourages children to think of ways they can help to protect and conserve natural resources.
Activity and worksheet recommended websites for children:
Most of these sites have student or children’s sections and are very informative and fun.
Summary and Closure:
Have the students share their books and discuss what they found. Collect the completed worksheets and assign the ones not finished for homework. Talk to the class about the things you could do as a group for the community.
Assessments:
Class discussion and the shared booklets
The content of the worksheets
A quiz on environmental terms
Graphic organizers – content
Follow up and Extension
Plan an ongoing community service project for the class to do; begin it the next week if arrangements can be made. Have the students reflect on their experiences after doing some community service.
Bibliography:
Berson, Dr. Michael , Harcourt Horizons <st1:State><st1:place><I style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">North Carolina</I></st1:place></st1:State>.
Cause and Effect Toss Game, www.learnwhatsup.com/prc/activities/high/cause.html
Us in the World: Connecting People and Communities to ensure a Healthy Planet. www.prb.org. Population Reference Bureau,1998.
www.epa.gov/students/, Environmental Protection Agency
Worksheets – North Carolina USA: copyright Silver Burdett Ginn Inc.
Name: Danah Brown CI 3110 - Standard 4 Checklist
Standard 4: Elementary teachers have a broad knowledge and understanding of the major concepts in social studies.
*** Indicators 1 & 4 are addressed in CI 3000 (Learner Diversity) ***
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Indicator 2: Teachers understand the social science disciplines. Teachers: understand the interdisciplinary nature of social studies, know spatial and temporal concepts and their relationships are aware of the rights and responsibilities of democratic citizenship, and acquire new knowledge in the social sciences.
Artifact/ Documentation: Exam 1
Rationale:
Context - This indicator addressed through the questions and work we did on exam 1 in CI 3110.
Impact/ Alignment - We first had to write about each social studies discipline: history, geography, economics, political science, and religious studies. Then we had to do a lesson plan incorporating those disciplines. Question number two on the exam, dealt with this precisely, we had to list the rights and responsibilities of citizens living in a democracy and share and model these ideas with k-6 grades. Things like the Bill of Rights, voting, community service. We also had to do a community service project a responsibility in our internship classrooms. These things have given me a better understanding of each Social Studies discipline and ideas for a unit of instruction; it has also improved my relationship with my (intern) students by working together on a project.
Indicator 3: Teachers know and understand the developmental progression from the individual to the nation: Self and family, home and school, neighborhoods, communities, state, nation
Artifact / Documentation: Exam 1
Rationale:
Context - This indicator was addressed in question number three in the exam.
Impact/Alignment - This question directly asks us to list the developmental progression in the NCSCOS elementary social studies curriculum; as well as discuss the origins of the Expanding Environments curriculum. We wrote about Paul Hanna and the following:
NCSCOS Developmental Progression K-6
· K: Self and Family/Families around the world
· 1: Neighborhoods and communities around the world
· 2: Regions: Local,
· 3: Citizenship: People making a difference
· 4: <st1:State><st1:place><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 10pt">North Carolina</SPAN></st1:place></st1:State>: geography and history
· 5:
· 6:
This indicator provided lots of information about the curriculums we deal with as teacher and the general development of students; as well as good tools to use on expanding environments curriculum.
Indicator 5: Teachers have a basic knowledge of local and national traditions.
Artifact/ Documentation: Calendar of National Traditions for Exam 1
Rationale:
Context - This indicator was addressed with a calendar we made that had each month, all the national and local holidays and traditions on it and with a field trip.
Impact/Alignment - The calendar was similar to a flipchart with information about different traditions and why they are important. For this indicator we also went on a field trip to Old Salem in Winston Salem, North Carolina. We saw how a person from the early 1900’s used to lived and visited old churches and residential homes with artifacts in them. This gave me real insight into the importance knowing about local and national traditions for educational and social purposes in the classroom.
Indicator 6: Teachers understand basic geographic concepts and how they can be integrated including: Map, globe and chart skills, Five Themes of Geography, Six Essential Elements of Geography & Environmental issues and concerns
Artifact/Documentation: Map and power point presentation
This indicator was addressed through a power point presentation we did in CI 3110. Each person chose a different area to be studied in-depth and then we presented them to each other in class. My area was
· For the Map, globe and chart skills we had to find a map with this area. Find the continent it was on and the absolute location of longitude and latitude; as well as the relative location.
· For the 5 Themes we covered those with a power point screen dedicated to each: 1 location 2 place 3 interaction 4 movement 5 regions.
· We covered the six essential elements of geography in our presentation by incorporating and discussing them in the context of each theme. The elements covered were: 1 the world in spatial terms 2 places and regions 3 physical systems 4 human systems 5 environment and society and 6 the many uses of geography.
· To address environmental issues and concerns we did a screen on community service and ways you can help to save our natural resources and land.
All of these elements can be used in the classroom and in everyday life. Children will know more why we want to protect our environment if they learn about it.
Indicator 7: Teachers understand basic economic concepts, including: Supply and demand, Interdependence/international trade, Limited resources& resource allocation,
Artifact/ Documentation– Fritzer (reading /quiz)
Rationale:
Context - This indicator was addressed by the reading of SS content book Frtizer.
Impact/ alignment – The following topics were addressed:
· Supply and Demand – In economics this is the basic factor in determining the price of something. If something is in demand the price goes up if something. If the supply is high price is lower.
· International Trade – The exchange of goods and services between nations
· Limited resources – decisions on how to use what; this is the activity of deciding where resources should be used for a particular aim or goal.
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· Economic Systems – refers to laws and institutions in a nation that determine who owns economic resources, how people buy and sell those resources and how the production process makes use of resources in providing goods and services.
· Industrialization/ technology – An increase for some reason of the importance of industry to an economy.
· Commercial and subsistence agriculture – production of crops for sale or profit by different means.
Knowledge of these items prepares one for teaching them in-depth in the classroom.
Indicator 8: Teachers have knowledge of history and historical concepts including: Sense of chronology, Cause and effect, Continuity and change, North Carolina History, United States History, &World History
Artifact / Documentation: Timeline, created quarter, reading of the book “Shhh…..We’re Writing the Constitution”.
Rationale:
Context – We made a timeline in class about our lives and included dates and important events. We created a “new” quarter on our own and shared them with the class. And then as a group we read the constitution book and talked about it.
Impact/alignment –
· To obtain knowledge about the Sense of Chronology we created timelines about our lives and illustrated them.
· To learn about cause and effect we talked about what caused the people to write the constitution and what effect it had.
· We also to understand continuity and change talked about and made a new quarter and shared it.
· The created objects on the following pages and could be used in the classroom as a prompt for the same activity or others. We also addressed history in the Frtizer book and on exam 1. An explanation of history with the artifact for indicator 2, 3 and 5.
Some very brief explanations of history we addressed in Frtizer and on the exam are:
NC History – regions (piedmont, mountains, coast),
World History – World Wars, Foreign Affairs, trade.
Indicator 9: Teachers have a knowledge of political science, including: Comparative governments (Government in a democratic society), Local, state, and national governments, & International relations.
Artifact/ Documentation: Fritzer reading and quiz
Rationale:
Context – This was addressed by reading and quiz of Fritzer.
Impact/ alignment – We addressed many aspects of Political Science; we talked about he importance of government and the different roles people play, for example the different branches like judicial, executive and legislative. Students need to know these things they are our future voters and have most of the same rights as adults do. Some things we targeted in Fritzer were:
· Government in a democratic society this included the rights and responsibilities we did on our exam.
· We talked about and tested on local, state and national governments and the similarities and differences.
· We also addressed organizations like OPEC, NAFTA and the UN in our talks and work on international relations.
We see something to do with political science almost every night on television. We live with the laws and regulations of our nation everyday and with other nations by way of imports and exports and wars. So I think it is a very important subject for children to learn. They need to know things like what issues are and who to vote for. Why we are at war and what the goods and services available in certain areas are. This can all be done by teaching them about Political Science.
Indicator 10: Teachers demonstrate a knowledge and understanding of physical, regional, and cultural geography and their effects on the relationship between people and their environments.
Artifact/ Documentation: Fritzer reading and quiz
Rationale:
Context – addressed by Fritzer and quizzes
Impact/alignment – along with a project on a state that covered the 5 themes of geography we tested and read on the different areas of geography as well. Theses aspects of Geography will be important in many different areas of study in social studies and science and even math in the elementary classroom. Below are 3 areas of Geography and a small summary of their effects on the relationship between people and their environment.
Physical Geography – Elevation, Climate, Landforms and many more; these are aspects of physical geography that have an affect on people and the environment. People move to certain areas and buy certain products based on the land and the temperatures (ex: skiing). Elevations affect the temperature you cook something at and how well people breathe (air pressure). There are many more areas like biology, meteorology, Oceanography, etc.
Cultural Geography – This classification, sometimes called human geography, involves all phases of human social life in relation to the physical earth.
Regional Geography - Regional geography concerns the differences and similarities among the various regions of the earth. For example what makes North
Indicator 11: Teachers promote the basic principles of being a citizen as vital to the development of responsible members of society by promoting an understanding of character development, including: Responsibility, Integrity, Self-discipline, Caring, Respect, Perseverance, Courage, & Citizenship.
Artifact / Documentation: Literature study papers addressing character development.
Rationale:
Context - This indicator is addressed by 8 different stories each about a different character trait done in CI 3110.
Impact/alignment – We read a book about each character trait and then wrote a paper about it. These books are great tools for teaching about becoming a good citizen and writing about them shows understanding of the basic principles of being a good citizen. This is important at every age level in school and can never be addressed to much. The books read were:
· Responsibility - Mercedes and the Chocolate Pilot
· Perseverance – Freedom on the Menu
· Respect – Teammates
· Self Discipline – Nim and the War Effort
· Caring – Boxes for Katje
Each paper includes a summary of the book and its relation to character development.
Service Learning
Context: This was completed at
Impact: This was great project and brought me closer to all of the 4th grade students some of their families and all of the teachers. It reminded me how good it feels to teach others and help others and get children involved. It was one of the most fun things we did during our internship and I plan to do things like this when I become a teacher.
Alignment: This Service Learning Project goes with my unit of study for this internship. It covers the <st1:State><st1:place>North Carolina</st1:place></st1:State> and Community part of the 4th grade curriculum in Social Studies.
Service Learning Project Information Attached
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