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LESSON PLAN TEMPLATE Your Name: Anni Sezate Title of Lesson: Deforestation of the Rainforest Grade: 4 STANDARDS Arizona

Science Standards Strand 3: Science in Personal and Social Perspectives Concept 1: Changes in Environments - Describe the interactions between human populations, natural hazards, and the environment. PO 1. Describe how natural events and human activities have positive and negative impacts on environments (e.g., fire, floods, pollution, dams). PO 2. Evaluate the consequences of environmental occurrences that happen either rapidly (e.g., fire, flood, tornado) or over a long period of time (e.g., drought, melting ice caps, the greenhouse effect, erosion). Common Core State Standards (Arizona College and Career Ready Standards) Speaking and Listening Standards 1. Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (oneonone, in groups, and teacher led) with diverse partners on grade 4 topics and texts, building on others ideas and expressing their own clearly. (4.SL.1) 4. Report on a topic or text, tell a story, or recount an experience in an organized manner, using appropriate facts and relevant, descriptie details to support main ideas or themes; speak clearly at an understandable pace. (4.SL.4) 5. Add audio recordings and visual displays to presentations when appropriate to enhance the development of main ideas or themes. (4.SL.5) LESSON SUMMARY/OVERVIEW Previous lessons in this unit have introduced the topic of the rainforest and ecosystem services. This lesson will introduce the topic of deforestation and how that not only endangers the animals that live there, but takes away from the ecosystem services that it provides for us. These ideas would be introduced and discussed during and after a read-aloud of a picture book called The Great Kapok Tree. This book is a story about a man who goes to chop down a tree in the rainforest, but then reconsiders when he realizes all of the many lives he would be affecting by chopping down that tree. Next the class would break up into groups and plan a persuasive video expressing their opinions of deforestation, using the knowledge that they gained throughout the week as well as the library books available to back up their claims. After that the class would then be put in a rotation of centers. In one center that group creates their video using the materials provided by the teacher. In the second center, the teacher will pull up a website for the group to watch more videos on rainforests. In the last center the teacher will provide coloring pages for the students to decorate. OBJECTIVES SWBAT identify the effects of deforestation of the rainforest by participating in a class discussion and working in groups to create a video expressing their opinions of deforestation backed up by facts. ASSESSMENT/EVALUATION Formative Assessments: Students will participate in a class discussion of the book The great Kapok Tree (a fictional picture book about deforestation of the rainforest). Summative Assessment: Students will create a video expressing their opinion on deforestation, backed up by facts from videos or books. PREREQUISITE KNOWLEDGE What are ecosystem services? What is the rainforest? What ecosystem services are provided by the rainforest? This prior knowledge will be activated through a quick review of the past three days lessons at the start of this lesson, an d will also be brought up in the read-aloud and discussion. MATERIALS The Great Kapok Tree picture book Whiteboard markers Video recorder (and charger) One DVD/tape per group Rainforest coloring pages Crayons/markers/colored pencils Any other supplies in the classroom that students would like to utilize VOCABULARY/KEY WORDS Ecosystem Ecosystem Services Rainforest

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Deforestation TEACHING PROCEDURES The teacher will call on three to five students to share what they have learned so far in this unit as a quick review. The teacher will gather the students together around the reading chair. The teacher will read The Great Kapok Tree to the class and ask the following questions during and after the reading of the book. a. What did you think the man was going to do at the beginning of the story? b. Why would he want to chop down the tree? What had he to gain from that? (The teacher will write a list of responses on the whiteboard.) c. What do you think the man was thinking when he hesitated to chop down the tree? d. What was he thinking when they walked away? e. Why do you think he left the ax in the forest when he left? f. In the book, the animals provided many reasons why the man should not chop down the kapok tree. What reasons stuck with you the most? (The teacher will record these responses on the whiteboard.) The teacher will lead the students in a discussion of deforestation. The teacher will ask, Why do we chop down trees? Students will raise their hands to respond. Not all of the reasons for chopping down trees had been addressed in the book, however, so the teacher will ask all of the students to check under their desks. Before the start of class, the teacher will have taped reasons for chopping down trees under some of the students desks. If a student finds a piece of paper taped under their desk they will raise their hand and share with the class. The teacher will then ask the students, Are the things we gain from chopping down trees worth the lives that are endangered in the process? Do you think it is worth it? Students will use values thinking to decide where they stand on the issue. They must choose to join one of three stances/groups: Save the rainforest! (this group is for protecting the rainforest and the ecosystem services it provides), Utilize our resources (this group is for chopping down trees because of the services they provide), or Undecided (this group can see both sides). The students will be split up into their three groups. The teacher will explain that they are to plan out a three to five minute persuasive video about their stance. They will have about ten minutes to prepare. The will then have the opportunity to create their own video using the video recorder, a tape/DVD provided by the teacher, and any other materials they choose to use. Since not every group can be using the video recorder at the same time, the teacher will set up rotating centers, the Create your video center being one of them. Each group will spend five minutes at their center. a. These are the three centers that the teacher will set up: i. Explore the rainforest in this center, students will have to opportunity to view more rainforest videos on the Supernatural Adventures website. This will be on the teachers computer so that he/she can monitor the students. ii. Create your video this center is where the students create the video that they had planned out. They will be provided the necessary materials and will be allowed to film the video wherever in the classroom they desire, or even outside, as long as they stay near the classroom. iii. Color your rainforest this center is an artistic center where students will color pictures of the rainforest. At the end of fifteen minutes the teacher will call the class back to their seats and end the lesson. She will explain that on the next day they will view the videos that they made.

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RESOURCES Arizona Department of Education. (2005). Science standard articulated by grade level: Grade 4. Retrieved from: http://www.azed.gov/standards-practices/files/2011/09/sciencegrade4.pdf Arizona Department of Education. (2013). Arizona college and career ready standards: English language arts: 3rd 5th grade. Retreived from: http://www.azed.gov/azccrs/files/2013/10/azccrs-3-5-ela-standards-final10_28_13.pdf Rainforest Alliance. (2014). Rainforest Coloring Pages and Activities for Kids. Retrieved from: http://www.rainforestalliance.org/kids/activities Super Natural Adventures. (2009). Watch the Latest Videos of Super Natural Adventures. Retrieved from: http://supernaturaladventures.com/home.html WAYS OF THINKING CONNECTION

Provide a complete explanation of how your lesson plan connects to futures, system, strategic, or values thinking. Define the way of thinking you selected and used in this lesson plan. Remember, this should be included meaningfully in the lesson plan. This lesson includes both systems thinking and futures thinking. The way that it includes systems thinking is how the first part of the lesson focuses on how chopping down trees in the forest affect all of the animals, plants, and insects that live there in the rainforest because they are all a part of one ecosystem. The lesson includes values thinking because in the second half of the lesson, students are asked to decide where they stand in their views of deforestation. They have to decide whether the benefits we gain from chopping down trees are worth the lives that are affected. Then they are asked to explain their reasoning in a persuasive video.

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