LESSON PLAN

Name: Cassy Wroblewski

Studies/Language Arts

Content Area: Social

Grade Level: Fifth Grade

Use this template to plan, removing the notes in parentheses and this box. Give this form to your
cooperating teacher for review and a signature before you teach your lesson.

Goal(s):

E.4.12 Give examples of important contributions made by Wisconsin

citizens, United States citizens, and world citizens

Pre-planning

The students would have already learned about what kinds of pollution
there are. They would have already learned about ways that people
contribute to pollution. What I want the students to think about next is
what they can do to help make the environment cleaner.

Objective(s)
& Academic
language
focus

Students will describe the environmental impact of humans.

Students will identify ways that humans pollute.
Students will give examples of how they can help reduce pollution.

Assessment:

Materials Needed:
2008SP

Academic Language:
Pollution: When the natural environment is contaminated which
causes adverse change.
Pollutants: Waste material that pollutes air, water, or soil.
Littering: Throwing of man-made objects into the environment.
Air Pollution: When chemicals and particles are released into the
atmosphere.
Water Pollution: When waste and contaminants are released into
water.
I will be looking for students to tell me ways in which people contribute to
pollution.
I will be looking for students to come up with ways to clean up our
schools environment.
I will have the students explain their role as citizens in the community and
how they can influence others to take care of their community in their
writing journals. I also want to see writing about what they have learned
about pollution.

Anchor charts
Writing Journals

Procedures:
Introduction: I will start off the lesson by talking to the students about what we already
know about pollution. I will have the students turn and talk about how pollution affects their
own community. The students will have about one minute to talk with their partners and then
they will share their thoughts. As the students are sharing I will write down their ideas on an
anchor chart. When all their ideas are written down, I will talk more about littering. Then I will
have the students turn and talk with the students next to them about ways in which they can help
keep their community clean.
Once they are done talking with their partners we will have group discussion about how we
can help to stop pollution in our own community because that is part of being an active citizen in
the community. Students will share their ideas of how they can help keep their community clean,
and I will write these ideas down on an anchor chart. I will ask them questions about how they
can help and lead them into telling me that they could help by not littering. After our discussion,
I will ask them if they would like to come up with a plan to keep our school clean.
Planning: First we will take a walk around the school to see what might need some cleaning
up. On our walk I also want the students to think about ways in which they could encourage the
whole school to keep our environment clean.
Once we come back from our walk we will have a whole group discussion about what we
can do for our school. I will write ideas down on an anchor chart. I will lead them into talking
about picking up litter outside of the school and on the playground. I also want them to talk
about putting up signs about recycling and having separate garbage for regular waste and another
for recycling. Then we will talk about how we can get this plan into action.
Writing Activity: I will have the students do a short writing activity. I will tell them that I
want them to think of areas in their community that could use some cleaning up or better ways of
recycling. I will also have them write about ways in which they can encourage their own family
to help keep the environment clean. I will use these as an assessment tool to see what they have
learned about pollution and their role as a citizen.

2008SP

2008SP

Social Justice is about recognizing and acting on the power that we have for making positive
change. In my lesson, I want my students to understand that they can make positive changes in
their own community. My students should know that they can be leaders in the change.
The focus of the positive change for this lesson is on pollution in their environment.
Pollution is a topic that the students have background information on since it is topic that we
have been learning about. I related it to students life because pollution happens in their own
communities and there are ways that they can help prevent pollution.
This lesson teaches students that there are ways that they can help keep their communities
clean. It teaches students to think about ways that they can encourage others to keep their
environment clean. This implements social justice because I give students a problem that effects
their lives and I allow them to come up with ways to be the positive change in their environment.

2008SP