Unit Plan

Unit Title
Curriculum Area
Developed By

Weather in Wisconsin
Social Studies, Math,
English Language Arts
Karla Usinger

Grade Level
Time Frame

4th Grade
2 weeks

Brief Summary of Unit

Weather has an impact on our everyday lives. Weather can affect food, the clothes we wear, and
our daily activities. Its essential we teach students the importance of observing and understanding
the weather that is happening around us. Since 4th grade students focus on their home state, I
decided for this unit to focus on the weather in Wisconsin and how it affects our lives. This unit will
be done over a period of two weeks. The students will explore and participate in a variety of
activities that will build their knowledge of typical weather conditions in Wisconsin, extreme
weather that can occur here, and the impact it has on our lives.
This unit integrates social studies with understanding the weather that can occur in our home state,
math with graphing weather patterns, geography with researching various cities in Wisconsin and
their weather patterns, and English language arts with reading about weather conditions, and
various activities that include writing.
We will begin the unit with a pre-assessment of their understanding of basic weather conditions of
spring, summer, winter, and fall. Then the students will research weather patterns of a city in
Wisconsin they get to choose. The students will then graph the data they collected on a graph.
Next, we will move into the discussion of how meteorologists do research just like they did in order
to predict weather conditions during particular seasons, and to be prepared for extreme weather.
We will then get into extreme weather that can happen in Wisconsin, such as, tornadoes and
blizzards. Lastly, we will explore how weather affects our lives.

Stage 1-Desired Results

Content Standards
Target Standards
Social Studies Standards
A.4.6 Identify and distinguish between predictable environmental changes, such as weather
patterns and seasons, and unpredictable changes, such as floods and droughts, and describe the
social and economic effects of these changes.
A.4.7 Identify connections between the local community and other places in Wisconsin, the United
States, and the world.

Secondary Standards
ELA Standards
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.4.1
Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when
drawing inferences from the text.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.4.7
Conduct short research projects that build knowledge through investigation of different aspects of a
topic.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.4.3
Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique,
descriptive details, and clear event sequences.

Understandings

Essential Questions

Overarching Understanding

Its important that children know that there

are different weather patterns that
correspond with seasons because it will help
students prepare for accommodations in
daily life.
When students know extreme weather in
Wisconsin, specifically tornadoes and
blizzards, they will know the safety
precautions and be prepared for this type of
weather.

Overarching

How can you describe the typical

weather in Wisconsin?
How does weather impact your
everyday life?
How do you know that extreme
weather is going to occur or is
occurring in Wisconsin?

Knowledge

Skills

Students will know

Students will be able to

Key terms-weather, climate, forecast,

meteorologists, blizzard, tornado
Weather conditions during different seasons
in Wisconsin
Why understanding the weather is important
Conditions of extreme weather-blizzards and
tornadoes
How weather affects our lives

Conduct research on the internet

Read and interpret weather conditions
from various areas in Wisconsin
Represent weather data in graphs
Create a tornado in a bottle in order to
describe the formation and
characteristics of a tornado
Create a survival guide for a blizzard

Stage 2-Acceptable Evidence

Performance Task Description
What evidence will show that students understand? Performance tasks and/or projects:

Students will research a city of Wisconsin and represent the data in graphs.
Students will participate in the tornado in a bottle experiment and record their observations
and characteristics of tornadoes.
Students will create a survival guide for a blizzard.
Students will brainstorm and create charts how weather affects their clothing, food, and
daily activities.
Students will write about a time where they were affected by the weather.
Students will participate in a summative assessment the last day using Kahoot.

What other evidence will be collected?

Students will take a pre-assessment of their understanding of the weather conditions of the
four seasons in Wisconsin.
All of the notes will be collected from their research of their city.
Observations from the tornado in the bottle experiment.
Notes from the blizzard activity describing what they saw in the pictures will also be
collected.

Student Self-Assessment

Self-assess the Adopt a City activity.

Self-assess the survival guide for a blizzard.
Self-assess written piece on a time where you were affected by the weather.
Students will reflect on what they learned about weather and how it affects our lives.

Stage 3-Learning Plan

Where are your students
headed? Where have they
been? How will you make
sure the students know
where they are going?
How will you hook students
at the beginning of the unit?
What events will help
students experience and
explore the big idea and
questions in the unit? How
will you equip them with
needed skills and
knowledge?

How will you cause students

to reflect and rethink? How
will you guide them in
rehearsing, revising, and
refining their work?
How will you help students
to exhibit and self-evaluate
their growing skills,
knowledge, and
understanding throughout
the unit?
How will you tailor and
otherwise personalize the
learning plan to optimize the
engagement and
effectiveness of ALL
students, without
compromising the goals of
the unit?
How will you organize and
sequence the learning
activities to optimize the
engagement and
achievement of ALL
students?

A pre-assessment will be done the first day to help me

understand my students prior knowledge on weather conditions
of the four seasons in Wisconsin. We will also go over the goals
and standards of the unit so the students are clear where they
are going and what is expected. I will also provide examples of
the activities as we go.
I will hook the students with my engaging scenario. Discuss why
observing and understanding the weather is important.
The students will get to explore a city of Wisconsin and
the weather conditions there. They will research and
graph their data.
The students will experiment with the tornado in a bottle
activity.
Students will create a survival guide for a blizzard.
Students will brainstorm how the weather affects their

clothing, food, and daily activities. They will work in

groups and create anchor charts.
Clear instructions will be given before each activity. I will also
model and provide examples when necessary.
Students will be reflecting throughout this unit. They will reflect
on the weather patterns in different parts of Wisconsin during our
class discussion. They will write down their observations from
the tornado in a bottle experiment. They will also describe and
write what they see when looking at the pictures of blizzards.
Students will also reflect when writing about a time they were
affected by the weather.
Students will complete a self-assessment at the end of the unit.
They will evaluate themselves on the city they researched, the
tornado in a bottle experiment, their survival guides, and their
written piece how weather has affected them.
I will personalize this lesson to meet the needs of each student. I
have a range of activities during this unit that addresses multiple
intelligences. Many of the activities are done in groups,
however, students will have the option to work alone if they
prefer to.

This unit plan will occur over a 2 week period. We will begin with
understanding weather conditions of Wisconsin. Students will
research a particular city and graph their data. Then we will
transition to learning about extreme weather that can happen in
Wisconsin, particularly tornadoes and blizzards. Lastly, we will
address the overarching question of how weather affects our

lives.
Template From: Wiggins, Grant and J. Mc Tighe. (1998). Understanding by Design, Association for Supervision and
Curriculum Development
ISBN # 0-87120-313-8 (ppk)

Daily Calendar of Unit Plan

Day 1: Introduction

Introduce Unit
Engaging Scenario
Discuss why understanding the weather is important
Go over goals and standards of the unit
Introduce and teach the vocabulary terms: weather and climate
Students take pre-assessment on weather conditions of spring, summer, winter, fall

Day 2: Adopt a City

Go over pre-assessments (clear up any misunderstandings)

Students will get to choose a city in Wisconsin. They will have to research their citys
weather conditions of a given period of time. (Students will represent their data in
graphs on Day 3)
Show students the example of the graph I created for the weather in Kenosha, WI during
a given period
Students begin research

Day 3: Research & Graphing

Students will finish research of their city

I will have preapproved websites for them to visit to conduct their research
They will record the weather data of their city in their notebooks and then graph their
data

Day 4: Share and Compare

Students will share the graphs of their city

We will have a class discussion about the weather patterns in different parts of
Wisconsin

Day 5: Meteorologist/Extreme Weather

Teach vocabulary term: meteorologist

Discuss how meteorologists do research just like they did in order to predict weather
conditions during particular seasons, and to be prepared for extreme weather.
Invite Meteorologist to come speak
Introduce our next topic-Extreme Weather: Tornadoes

Day 6: Tornadoes Continued

Show video on tornadoes

Tornado in a bottle experiment
Students will work in small groups and create a tornado in a bottle
Students will write down their observations during the experiment
Class Discussion-Discuss characteristics of tornadoes and safety procedures.

Day 7: Extreme Weather in Wisconsin: Blizzards

Show students pictures of blizzards and ask them to describe what they see. They will
work in small groups and discuss the pictures. They will write their responses in their
notebooks. Ask students if they know what we call this type of weather.
Introduce blizzards-discuss definition and characteristics
Read Blizzard, by: John Rocco. Discuss book as a group. Ask and answer questions
related to book.

Day 8: Blizzards Continued

Students will work in small groups and create a survival guide. They will include all of
the things they will need to survive a blizzard.
Students will present their survival guides to the class.

Day 9: How does weather affect our lives?

Students will brainstorm how the weather affects their clothing, food, and daily
activities.
Class lists will be written on anchor charts for rainy, snowy, sunny, windy days, etc.
Students will work in groups on the anchor charts.
Students will write about a time where they were affected by the weather.
Show and read the example I wrote about a time the weather affected me.

Day 10: Wrap Up/Closure

Students share their written stories

Summative Assessment-Kahoot
Students complete self-assessment

Extension (Can be done throughout the school year):

Students can practice being meteorologists by going down to the kindergarten class and presenting
the forecast for the next day. They can also tell the kindergartners what clothing they should wear
and things they will need in order to be prepared for the weather.

Engaging Scenario
Imagine you wake up one day, and its a typical school day. You need to eat breakfast and get
ready for school. However, your mom and dad (or caretaker) is in bed with the flu. You need to get
dressed and ready for school by yourself. How will you know what to wear? What time of the year
is it? Is it snowing? Will you need a hat, gloves, and boots? Or is it raining? Do you need an
umbrella? Or is it going to be hot where you will wear shorts and a t-shirt? Weather has an impact
on what we wear. This is just one way weather affects our lives. Weather can affect food, the
clothes we wear, and our daily activities. Its important you observe and understand the weather
that is happening around us because it will help you prepare for accommodations in your daily life
and also be prepared for extreme weather that can occur here like tornadoes and blizzards.

References:
http://www.everythingesl.net/lessons/weather.php
http://www.sciencekids.co.nz/experiments/makeatornado.html
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:N8JOykVP3cYJ:www.ncnet.info/ESL/Caldwell/Year_2/Lesson_Plans/Blizzards/lessonplanunderstandblizzards.doc+&cd=4&hl
=en&ct=clnk&gl=us