Sample Units Designs

Designing Units Around Math and Science Topics

University of Illinois at Chicago College of Education

ED312, Spring 1995; Professor Maria Varelas

Lesson by Nicole Davies, Swati-Sanghani, Fadwa-Musleh, Mayra Rojas

Animals and Plants as Part of our Living Environment

Lesson for:

Grades 3-5

Project description

Part 1: The Rain Forest

How are plants and animals part of our living environment? Our group focused on designing a unit for 3-5 grade children. In Benchmark for Science Literacy, students should know the following five aspects about the living environment:

1. For any particular environment, some kinds of plants and animals survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all.
2. Insects and various other organisms depend on dead plant and animal material for food.
3. Organisms interact with one another in various ways beside providing food. Many plants depend on animals for carrying their pollen to other plants or for dispersing their seeds.
4. Changes in an organism's habitat are sometimes beneficial to it and sometimes harmful.
5. Most microorganisms do not cause disease, and many are beneficial. It is important for students to know how animals and plants help each other and how people help and hinder our environment.

The rain forest is one type of Ecosystem that has plants and animals which need to work together to survive. Students should be introduced to the characteristics of a rain forest:

1. Usually wet and muggy
2. At least 200 centimeters of rain per year
3. Daily temperature is 27 degrees Celsius
4. Sun shines 12 hours per day

These concepts are difficult for children to understand because many students have never been to a rain forest and have never seen one. The teacher can help students by decorating the classroom with posters, pictures, movies, animal/rain noises and field trips. Posters can illustrate where rain forest regions are located and lay out the layers in the rain forests. Field trips can be taken to the zoo, Botanical Gardens, Morton Arboretum, Oceanarium, nature stores, Chicago Children's Museum, and school grounds and parks.

A good literature book that could lead into this unit is The Great Kapok Tree. This book introduces the different aspects of how an ecosystem works. It exemplifies how plants, animals, and humans depend on one another. It also introduces the variety of living species that may live within an ecosystem. It also places a sense of responsibility on the human, the student, to think of those whom they live with when making environmental and community decisions. On a deeper perspective, this book exemplifies that this kind of decision making is part of good leadership skills. Again, this book should only give an overview of an ecosystem and its various aspects. Here are some other beneficial children's books.

Bright, Michael. Tropical Rain Forest

• Activity
  Children can become familiar with animals and plants that live in the rain forest and recognize the different roles of organisms in the food chair. Assign an animal from the rain forest and ask them to do a report answering these questions:
  1. Where the animal or plant lives in the rain forest.
  2. The layer it is found in.
  3. What it eats, if it is an animal.
  4. What eats it.
  5. Include a drawing of the animal or plant.
• Possible difficulties/Previous knowledge
  Children might have difficulties formulating a food chain without knowing about the other plants and animals. That is why a food chain should be constructed after each child has orally presented their plant or animal.
• Assessment
  Given a maximum of five points for each question that is asked and a maximum of fifteen points for the oral presentation. If the child answers the question thoroughly, five points should be given and if the child illustrates that he/she learned a lot from the report in their oral presentation, fifteen points should be given.

Dunphy, Madeleine. Here is the Tropical Rain Forest.

• Activity
  Have the children take an imaginary trip to the forest and call the activity "Walking in the Forest." Teacher can bring in a humidifier, plants, and a tape of animal and rain noises. The children can either lay on a blanket or place their heads on their desks. Ask the children to close their eyes and say what sounds they hear. What do they think they might see, smell and touch?
• Difficulties
  Children may have never been to a real rain forest but they can imagine they are in one for a day.
• Assessment
  No real form of assessment; maybe have the children write down what they heard, saw, touched, and smelled.

Aldis, Rodney. Ecology Watch: Rain Forests

• Activity
  Gather some things that might be found on the rain forest floor (moss, leaves, dirt,rocks, pine cones, and bones). Put everything into a brown bag and have the children feel what the rain forest floor feels like.
• Difficulties/Previous Knowledge
  It may be difficult finding some of these materials due to our seasons. Children may already know what everything feels like and where it can be found individually. It is interesting to know that the rainforest's floor consists of everything list above.
• Assessment
  Have the children feel the different things in the bag, identify it, and write in a few sentences where they have seen it before.
• Other activities include:
  1. Have children say what types of wood we get from rain forests (teak, mahogany, rosewood, balsa, and sandalwood) and what they are used for (doors, floors, cabinets, salad bowls, furniture, insulation and toys).
  2. Introduce types of people that live in rain forests and describe their way of life and how it differs from ours.
  3. Introduce the different foods and spices found in the rain forest (coffee, coconuts, nuts, cinnamon, and bananas). Do a Rain Forest Recipe Book with one recipe involving rolling bananas in chopped nuts, shredded coconuts, cinnamon and sugar.
  4. It is also important to bring up the idea of deforestation. Have the children write a short story about how they can save a tropical rain forest using the words endangered species, coconut, tribes, native people, slash-burn agriculture, plants, humidity, botanist, and science.

Part 2: The Environment

How can we as teachers have our students realize the importance of our surroundings? Students must realize what is happening to our enviornment and what we as teachers can do to make sure students form some sort of understanding. Get students involved with the environment by showing ways we can effectivey use our resources and start school recycling programs. This activity encourges involvement in school and community. Students become active and caring instead of just learning and hearing new information.

Silverstein Shel. The Giving Tree.

• Activity
  1. How trees can widely be used for their resources: apples, branches, for fire, trunk for a house or boat, and leaves for shade.
  2. Have students think of other ways trees are resourceful in their environment. Draw pictures or bring in objects.
• Difficulties/Previous knowledge
  1. Students may not have access to such large trees, which would be unfamiliar.
  2. Class discussion about types of resources students use at home. Get a feeling of how much students know about natural resources and how useful trees actually are.
• Assessment
  Collection of works after unit is finished. Stories about resources, drawings, class participation are all taken into consideration. This activity would not have a test mainly seeing if students are aware of their surroundings and seeing if they are involved and interested.

Collinson, Alan. Pollution: Repairing the Damage.

• Activities
  1. Students write to local Congress people or aldermen about city pollution and land fills seeing if there are any improvement programs currently in effect.
  2. Class essays or journal writings about ways they can as individuals clean up their community. Explain what life would be like without our natural resources.
  3. Have class discussion about ways we actually hinder the environment.
• Possible Difficulties/Previous knowledge
  1. What if Congress never responds? What example does that show for the students?
  2. Students may have a hard time actually understanding the damage of pollution because we cannot see it.
  3. Discussion before introduction of unit about new vocabulary words: pollution, land fills, toxic waste. See how familiar class is with these terms. Some may live near waste dumps while others may be completely unfamiliar with these new terms.
  4. See how familiar parents are with this topic and whether or not their knowledge reflects upon students.
• Assessment
  Portfolio of journal writings, letters and essays along with class participation. Once again, this unit is based on class involvement and participation, both written and orally. They would get high grades based on effort of work turned in.

The Earthworks Group. 50 Simple Things Kids Can Do to Save the Earth

• Activities
  1. Kids can collect garbage bags they use for five days, for example. Students put paper trash into bag and bring to school to weigh and calculate how much paper garbage one uses pers week. Math is incorporated.
  2. "Going Shopping" - Tally what students carry in lunch bag under four categories due to amount of packaging. Students then can compare and contrast results.
  3. "Lunch Lists" - Weigh lunch and list contents. Students eat lunch and put leftovers into lunch bag to see how much is actually left over. The students can weigh total class weight. This activity shows how much we waste at lunch, especially with packaging.
• Possible Difficulties/Previous knowledge
  1. If students are familiar with recycling projects they can greatly contribute to activities and discuss and share personal experiences.
  2. Hard to motivate parents and students to become involved without an incentive, bottle deposits, for example.
• Assessment
  1. Activities to "Save the Earth" would conclude this entire unit on plants, animals and the environment. That is why a portfolio would be the most accurage assessment. Effort and interaction, carefully grade the students comprehension of this material studied.
     
     
  2. This unit is extremely hard to assess because it is more of a "FYI" than part of a standard curriculum. That is why I believe a portfolio would be the most appropriate form of assessment.

Part 3: Second Language Learners

During our presentation of plants and animals through the rain forest we focused on second language learners. It is very important to meet the needs of all the children in our classrooms and be sensitive to the differences in language proficiency. There are currently high numbers of language minority students in our schools. As prospective teachers it is important for us to be aware of the difficulties second language learners encounter and how we could facilitate their education.

First of all, language minority students have to be provided opportunities for meaningful interaction with the target language, English. The activities we design should use concrete visual formats that will increase students' motivation as well as skills and concepts.

In teaching math and science we could use manipulatives, do experiments and demonstrations in which children clearly see what is being taught. Children are very curious and teachers must be aware of that. They like to smell, touch, taste, and make predictions. Our job as teachers is to provide the opportunities for our children to make connections and excel in learning the subject matter as well as the second language.

In having second language learners in one's classroom, it is useful to have books in the native language as well as books in English. It is very important to provide the children with a vast selection of books in the classroom. We chose one book that would be very beneficial to find out how much children already know about the rain forest.

First, put the children in groups of four not based on their proficiency level in the second language. If you only have a couple of students that are Limited English Proficient, you would want to put them in groups with students that are more proficient. Then place a poster board in front of the class and make a line in the middle of it to make two columns. Then ask the students what they know about the rain forest and write their answers on one side of the poster board. On the other side, put statements about what they want to learn about the rain forest. In doing so the students are giving their ideas about what they know and want to learn and later in the unit one can find out what they learned through the unit. After that, one can place the poster board on one side of the wall so the children can continue adding to what was learned each day.

Cowcher, Helen. Rain Forest

• Activity
  Book is very colorful with a picture of a Toucan in the front. This book could be read by the teacher for clear intonation and pronunciation. The books explains the layers of the rain forest. One can do a mural representing the rain forest and its four layers.
  1. The whole class should decide the overall look of the mural.
  2. Divide class into seven groups:
     • Background
     • Trees
     • Other plants for all layers
     • Animals in the canopy layer
     • Animals on the canopy floor
     • Animals in the understory
     • Animals on the forest floor
  3. Each group would be responsible for doing any research to find out what animals live in each layer of the rain forest.
  4. When pieces are complete and cut the mural should be put up.
  5. The background is put up first followed by the trees, other plants, and finally the animals of each layer from the emergent layer to the forest floor.
• Possible Difficulties/Previous knowledge
• The students might encounter some problems working groups, for example, some might get stuck doing all the work. Another problem might be the vocabulary. They might not know what the three layers of the rain forest really are and why they are different. The children have to know that concept before starting the activity.
• Assessment
  The teacher needs to constantly be moving around and making sure everyone is cooperating. A good idea is to give each student a job title such as researcher, materials provider, etc., to make sure everyone is working. Another good idea would be to make up a checklist of things you want to make sure the students are doing during the activity. The teacher would then walk around and look at each individual student while they are working and check off the items on the list.