Teachers:

Janelle Cota

Inquiry Lesson Plan Template

Title & Topic:
Hunger

Grade Level:
4th-6th

Standards:
Common core state standards: 5.W.3. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or
events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.
Objective (Explicit & Measurable):
The students will develop a deeper understanding of the daily challenges faced by those living
in poverty.
Evidence of Mastery (Measurable Assessment: formative and summative):
(Formative) The teacher will make observations to see how the students are participating in
the activity. The teacher will see how engaged students are and how they are contributing to the
discussion. The discussion questions include:
1. How did you feel when you saw what you were eating?
2. What would you think if you only got to eat that every day, once a day?
3. How would you feel if you had to go to bed hungry every night?
4. What do you think the biggest barrier to overcome in facing the world hunger issue?
5. What efforts are being made to combat the global hunger crisis? Which do you think has
the most hope of success?
6. Is there anything you can do personally to help solve the problem on a global or local
level?

(Summative) The students will be formally assessed at the end of the lesson on their narrative.
The teacher wil assess the student on how detailed they were, how well they integrated values
thinking, and how much real-world evidence they included in their narrative.

Sub-objectives, SWBAT (steps that lead to completion of objective; sequence from simple to
more complex):
Students will be able to use values thinking to see what it would be like living with hunger.
The students will be able to research the country of the plate they uncovered to learn more
about the people living in that country.
The students will be able to write a narrative describing their experience as a child living in that
country using factual information of that country, what they eat, where they live, why they dont
have food, where they get their food from, etc.
Students will be able to participate in a group discussion and answer questions of what their
experience would be like.
Lesson Summary and Justification: (summary gives detailed information about what
students are doing. Justification why is this lesson being taught)
This lesson is designed to give students a real world perspective of what it would be like as a child
living in a country with poverty. Students gain more knowledge through this lesson about what other
countries eat, how often they can eat, where they get their food from, and why they arent able to eat.
Students will use values thinking with the simulation and writing their narrative.
Background Knowledge: (What do students need to know to complete this lesson)
Based off the previous 2 lesson prior to participating in this lesson, students will know what hunger is
and what causes hunger. Students will be aware of what malnutrition is and how malnutrition is affected
in different countries. The students know what contributes to hunger and malnutrition and have had
multiple discussions, activities, and videos based on hunger.

Misconception: (what possible misleading thoughts might students have?)

Process Skills: (what skills are you introducing or reinforcing: ex: observation
reinforcing; prediction - introducing.)
Obervation- from students that are observing the activity
Exploration- when researching different countries
Critical thinking- thinking about how to word the narratives

Safety: (what safety rules and items need to be addressed?)

N/A

Inquiry Questions: (testable in the here and now.)

1. (to explore) What does hunger look like in other countries?
2. (to elaborate) Write a narrative as If you were a child in one of those countries.
Key vocabulary: (list and define)
Materials:
1. Malnutrition- lack of proper nutrition,
1. Technology
caused by not having enough to eat,
2. Paper
not eating enough of the right things,
3. Pencil
of not being able to eat.
4. Plates
2. Poverty- the state of being extremely
5. Containers
poor
6. Food from activity.
3. Narrative- A spoken or wirtten account
of connected events; a story.

Engage - In this section you should activate prior knowledge, hook student
attention, pose a question (IQ#1) based on your lesson objective that students
will seek to answer in Explore.
Teacher Will: (hook)
Students Will:
1. The teacher will introduce the lesson by
showing the students a video that
interviews students about poverty and
hunger.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=OwIuOVJAn-0
2. The teacher will start a discussion with
the students. Questions will include
asking the students on their thoughts
about the video. Students will answer
the same questions that were asked to
the students in the video.

1. Students will watch the video.

2. Students will discuss questions given by the
teacher.

Best Teaching Practice Strategy/Differentiation and Teacher Notes

Make sure students are listening to other students responses.

Explore - In this section students should take the lead and actively use materials
to discover information that will help them answer the question posed in
Engage. Teachers may choose to give steps to follow, especially for younger students,
but the goal is for students to discover some or all of the sub-objectives of the lesson.
1. The students will be paired up or be put into
Teacher Will: (pose IQ #1)
1. The teacher will put the students in
pairs or groups of 3.
2. The teacher will assign each group or
pair a specific country by drawing from
a hat. The countries include The United
States, Mexico, Cambodia, Romania,
Russia, Bolivia, Somalia, and other
countries desired for as many groups
needed.

groups of 2.
2. The students will draw which country they will
be representing from a hat.
3. Each plate will be labeled so the student will go
to the plate that is assigned to the country they
drew from the hat. The student will sit at the
table to uncover the plate from the country
they chose.
4. The other partners that are not sitting at the

3. The tables will be pushed together to

form one big table.
4. The teacher will put a plate in front of
each chair for one person from each
pair or group. The rest of that persons
group will stand around the table.
5. Each plate will represent frood from a
specific country but the students will
not know what their plate looks
because it will be covered.
6. The teacher tells the students to
uncover their plates to see what food
they would eat if they were from that
country eating a meal for lunch that
day.
7. The meals include:
Mexicoo- Corn on the cob
The U.S- Chicken dinner with dessert
Cambodia-1/3 cup of rice
Romania- 1/3 cup cooked squash
Russia- Boiled potatoes and macaroni
Somalia- Cracked Wheat
8. The teacher will give the students
enough time for students to observe
their reactions and use values thinking
to put themselves in those childrens
shoes.

table, stand around the table and observe.

5. The students that are not sitting at the table
observe their partners reaction and other
students reactions.
6. The student will uncover the food from their
country.
7. The students will be able to see their plates of
what they would be eating if they were in that
country.

Best Teaching Practice Strategy/Differentiation and Teacher Notes

Tell the students that are standing around the table and not participating to stand around the table and
observe.

Explain In this section students share what they discovered, teacher connects
student discoveries to correct content terms/explanations, students
articulate/demonstrate a clear and correct understanding of the lesson sub-objectives
by answering the question from Engage before moving on.
Teacher Will:
Students Will:
1. The teacher will start a discussion with
the students that will get them to
reflect on the activity.
2. The questions the teacher ask will
include:
How did you feel when you
uncovered your plate?
How do you think someone
from that country would feel?
What was your initital thought?
To the students that were
observing, what reactions did
you see?
How did it make you feel?
3. The teacher will listen to the students
discuss and share thoughts.

1. The students will discuss with their classmates

as their teacher reads the questions.
2. The students will understand how other
students are feeling based off the experience.

Best Teaching Practice Strategy/Differentiation and Teacher Notes

Because this activity gives them a real-life connection and puts the issue into perspective in a very

hands-on way, allow the students to discuss with plenty of time what their thoughts are on what people
in that country would feel.

Elaborate In this section students take the basic learning gained from Explore and
clarified in Explain and apply it to a new circumstance or explore a particular aspect of
this learning at a deeper level. Students should be using higher order thinking in this
stage. A common practice in this section is to ask a What If? question. IQ #2
Teacher Will: (pose IQ #2)
Students Will:
1. The teacher will instruct the students
to start researching the same country
that they did the simulation on.
2. The teacher will give the students 2025 minutes to research.
3. The teacher will have a slide up with
the points that students need to
research. They include:
What that country eats
Where they get their food from
Why they dont have the
resources to make for food.
What makes it a country living
in poverty.
4. The teacher will then instruct the
students to write a narrative based off
the information they researched and
their experience with the activity. The
narrative will be based off them as if
they were a child living in that country
that they did.
5. The teacher will explain that they can
take the narrative in whatever direction
they would like as long as they include
the value component of how they
would feel by being descriptive and be
able to support that with factual
information.

1. The students will start researching the country

that they did their plate simulation on.
2. The students will research what poverty is like
in that country, why there is hunger, what
people eat in that country, where they get their
food from, and why they dont have more
resources to make food.
3. The students will then write a narrative as if
they were a child living in that country. The
students will write a narrative using the realworld evidence they found in their research and
the real-world experience activity to write a
well developed narrative of how it feels to be a
child living in that country.
4. The students will talk about the daily life of that
child and what they would feel and experience
as a child living in poverty.
5. The students will be given 30-35 minutes to
write their narrative.

Best Teaching Practice Strategy/Differentiation and Teacher Notes

The teacher will express that this is a values thinking practice of being able to provide enough evidence
from the information researched and the the feelings described from the simulation.

Evaluate In this section every student demonstrates mastery of the lesson

objective (though perhaps not mastery of the elaborate content). Because this also
serves as a closing, students should also have a chance to summarize the big
concepts they learned outside of the assessment.
Teacher Will: Time:
Students Will:
1. Once the students are completed with
their narratives, the teacher will split
up the groups and make new groups so
that they are with different countries.
2. The teacher will tell the students to
read their narratives to their new
groups.
3. The teacher will give the students new
discussion questions to answer with

1. The students will get into their new groups with

people that did their narratives on different
countries.
2. The students will share their narratives with
their new groups.
3. The students will have new discussion
questions that foster futures thinking. The
students will start thinking about possible
solutions to help world hunger.

their new groups. The questions

include:
What do you think is the biggest
barrier to overcome in facing
the world hunger problem?
What efforts are being made?
Which do you think has the
most hope of success?
Is there anything you can do
personally to help solve the
problem on a global or local
level?
Closure: (revisit objective, IQs and make real world connections) Time: 5-7 minutes

Ensuring that the students are in different groups with people that did different
countries is essential. Students learn about the different countries through the
narratives and what they experienced. The new discusison questions are based off
solutions and futures thinking so students can start thinking of what can be done to
help hunger.