Title: Classifying Air Masses

Grade and Subject: 6th Grade Earth Science

1. LESSON AND ASSESSMENT PLAN LEARNING OBJECTIVES
How are air masses perpetuated?
Purpose of the
Lesson: Central What do air masses provide for the Earth and why are
Focus they important?

Students will be able to:

Learning
Differentiate various air masses and how they are created
Objective(s)
Explain the roles that air masses play in determining the
Earths weather
Students will learn about a new concept or a new term through
Language scaffolding. In other words, they will be given supports that
Function connect their prior knowledge to the newly introduced material of
the day.
Students will demonstrate their understanding through the
annotation (writing) of the newly introduced context-specific
Academic Language

vocabulary words during the individual classwork phase of the

Vocabulary
lesson. Support of this knowledge will be done through the use of
visuals, repetition and scaffolding from Vygotskys sociocultural
theory.
Students will demonstrate their understanding of the context-
specific discourse through dialogue between their peers on the
newly introduced topic. This would also be accomplished as
through the personal annotations they will write on their
Syntax or
handouts which highlights their understanding of what the term
Discourse
means for them. Support would given through clarification after
these peer-to-peer activities. Students would be allowed to give
their ideas on the term. The teacher will step in and redirect
misguided conceptions, if necessary.
GSE - Georgia S6E4. Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information about
Standards of how the sun, land, and water affect climate and weather.
Excellence
b. Plan and carry out an investigation to demonstrate how
energy from the sun transfers heat to air, land and water at
different rates.

S6E4. Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information about

how the sun, land, and water affect climate and weather.

c. Develop a model demonstrating the interaction between

unequal heating and the rotation of the Earth that causes
 local and global wind systems.
The informal assessments for this lesson include the Daily
Science Review activity, the class discussion of the Air Mass
Notes and the Air Mass Maps. The student responses from the
review activity will serve as evidence in determining the students
Formal and
understanding of the subject matter. The student responses
Informal
during class discussion of the air mass notes and the air mass
Assessment
maps will also serve as evidence. The formal assessment for this
lesson will take form of a homework assignment. This assignment
will serve as evidence and will test the students ability and
knowledge to differentiate different air masses on a world map.
2. LESSON AND ASSESSMENT PLAN ACTIVITIES
Introductio Students will begin their time in the classroom by following the
Instructional Strategies & Learning Tasks that Support Diverse Student Needs

n instructions on the What to do first PowerPoint slide. This slide

(Length of will contain all the materials needed for the lesson of the day.
time) These materials are listed in the materials section of this lesson
plan.

The slide will also contain instructions to write their homework in

their agendas. The students will prepare their science notebooks
by labelling the notebook pages that will be used for the day. The
labelling is done by putting a proper header for the lined
notebook page and a page number. This helps students quickly
locate the page number and the topic that the page contains. The
homework is always listed in a designated section on the
whiteboard.

Students will have a learning objective that is one sentence long

located on the whiteboard within a section containing the
activities for the day.

Students will be allowed a total of 5 minutes to finish labelling

their science notebook pages, getting their materials and writing
their homework down in their agendas. After this basic
preparation work has been completed. Students will be given a
quick PowerPoint slide containing test statistics of all the class
periods including theirs. An explanation of the data will be
provided. Words of encouragement will be given and a clear
expectation of constant improvement will be announced to the
students. This portion will take a total of 5 minutes.

After each student has received their test packets and graded
answer sheets. They will participate in the Daily Science Review
(DSR) PowerPoint slide activity. This activity normally will contain
multiple choice questions that include previously learned content
material. However, this particular DSR will contain the most
missed questions of the Atmosphere & Winds Test that was taken
on Friday. The day that this lesson is provided is on Monday.
 Within the DSR, students are provided science notebook page
numbers on each question that will contain information that will
help them answer the question. This will have students practicing
their evidence finding skills. This evidence will support or
contradict the choice that they thought to be the correct answer.

To encourage students to participate, the activity will contain an

extrinsic motivation part to it in the form of candy or Bearbuck.
When a correct answer is given, the student who answered would
be allowed to receive a piece of candy or a Bearbuck. A Bearbuck
is a form of currency that allows students to purchase simple
school supplies such as wooden pencil or glue stick. Students are
randomly pulled to answer the question through a popsicle stick
bag that contains the wooden sticks. Each stick labelled with one
of the students in the classroom.

This DSR activity will take up a total of 15 minutes. This review

connects prior lessons to the days content material. In other
words, this is a scaffolding strategy. The purpose of this
activity is to refresh the students memory and refocus their
thinking.
Students will be given an air masses question & vocabulary sheet
in which they will paste into their spiral notebook. This should
take no longer than 2-3 minutes. This question & vocabulary
sheet will ask for basic information on the air masses. This basic
information will include the basic definition of an air mass as well
as how these air masses are classified into four distinct
categories. These classifications being determined by the air
masses humidity and temperature. The students will take time to
answer these questions individually. They will be given 10-15
minutes. Afterwards, students will pair up with their shoulder
buddy during which they will discuss their findings with one
Body another. This will take around 4-5 minutes. After this small group
(Length of activity, the teacher will bring the class together to go over the
time) sheet. Students will volunteer to share their results in which will
be written down by the teacher on the document camera.
Afterwards, students will be given a map of the United States with
blank arrows representing the varying air masses that are present
in North America. Students will be given a set of pictures which
will represent the area of that each arrow is in. From the
information they infer from the images provided, students will
determine what kind of air mass that area would be. This will be
done in groups of 4 to 5. This should take up 5-7 minutes of time.
After this, the teacher will take answers from the students in
which would be recorded on the handout on the teacher
document camera.
Closure Students will demonstrate their individual knowledge through a
(Length of homework assessment. This assessment will contain images
time) accompanied by a city and nation. Students would determine the
 type of air mass in these given locations. They would have to
explain their choice in a short sentence that will use the three
classifiers air mass. These being humidity, temperature and
location.
Students will demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of
the learning objectives in the DSR PPT of the next day. Future
lessons will be connected to this days lesson through this way.
Students will be allowed to pack up and clean up their table for
the last 3-5 minutes of class that is left.
Students with special needs will be provided with a page of notes
that is pre- labeled with the page number on them. This will help
these students to focus more closely on what is being talked
about during the instructional phase of the lesson. Without this
Differentiation,
accommodation, it can lead to the student being flustered and
Modification(s),
confused about the material as they desperately try to get it
and
down onto their handout. Through this setup, the student will be
Accommodation(
able to concentrate their entire effort towards the topic of the
s)
day. Further help will be given if required by the teacher through
repetition of the challenging concepts. More assistance will be
provided through the use of probing questions to open new ways
of thinking for the students in need of the instructional supports.
3. LESSON AND ASSESSMENT PLAN RESOURCES
WTDF PPT
DSR PPT
Spiral notebook
Air Masses Questions & Vocabulary Handout
Materials Air Masses U.S. Map Handout
Main Air Masses of the World Homework Sheet
Pen/pencil
Highlighter
Document Camera