LESSON PLAN TEMPLATE Your Name: Paige Millan Title of Lesson: How the physical characteristics of the Southwest affect food growth. Grade: 4th Grade STANDARDS Arizona College and Career Ready Standard (AZ.4.W.4) Produce clear and coherent functional writing (e.g., friendly and formal letters, recipes, experiments, notes/messages, labels, graphs/tables, procedures, invitations, envelopes) in which the development and organization are appropriate to task and purpose.
Arizona State Social Studies Standard (Strand 4, Concept 2, Grade 4, PO 1.) Describe how the Southwest has distinct physical and cultural characteristics. LESSON SUMMARY/OVERVIEW OBJECTIVES Objective: Students will be able to write a piece of functional writing that supports the idea that the physical characteristics of the Southwest contribute to food growth.
In this lesson, students will be writing a friendly letter to someone in their class explaining how the physical characteristics of the Southwest contribute (positively or negatively) to the growth of food in this region. ASSESSMENT/EVALUATION 80% of students will correctly identify 3 physical characteristics of the Southwest region on their ticket out the door (their friendly letter). PREREQUISITE KNOWLEDGE Before completing this lesson students will need to know that Arizona is a part of the Southwest region of the United States. Since the students have recently learned that the climate in Arizona is very dry and that Arizona is a desert state, the students will be introduced to the fact that the Southwest is made up of states similar to Arizona in terms of climate and landscape.
Students will also need to have completed days one, two, and three of the unit in order to understand how the physical characteristics of the Southwest could affect the way the states have to grow food. MATERIALS Whiteboard Computer Projector Blank map of Southwest region Tree map worksheet Paper Pencil VOCABULARY/KEY WORDS Physical characteristic Climate Arid TEACHING PROCEDURES On the board, the teacher will write “Food” at the center of a bubble map. Using Values Thinking, students will give ideas on why people value food and the food industry.
After the bubble map has been created, the students will be told to keep those values in mind as they complete the rest of the day’s activities.
Students will be handed out a map of the Southwest region. Using the projector to show an interactive map, the class will fill out the specific physical characteristics that make up the Southwest.
Define physical characteristics as defining traits or features of a state, region, or piece of land. The teacher will give facts about these physical characteristics as well as other facts about the region. Students will be given definitions of words that describe the Southwest.
Provide definition for climate (primary weather conditions in an area that remain the same for a long period of time). Provide definition for arid (having little or no rain, dry, does not easily support vegetation).
Students will write these facts and definitions on their maps.
After their maps are complete, students will be told that they will be writing a letter to a friend in the class.
The students will be given a few minutes to decide who their partner will be. Everyone should choose a partner in order for everyone to receive a letter.
Once partners have been decided, the class will begin brainstorming how to write this letter.
The basic structure of a friendly letter will be gone over.
o Heading
o Greeting
o Body
o Closing
o Signature
Using a tree map with Southwest as the topic, students will be instructed to write 3 physical characteristics of the Southwest onto the tree map. After listing their chosen 3 characteristics, the students will be asked to write 2 impacts (social or environmental) on food growth for each of those characteristics. If students need some help with listing the impacts, they can be given these questions to guide their ideas: How are these physical characteristics of the Southwest harmful to our food growth? Do we have to grow food differently because of these characteristics? How do we grow food differently because of these characteristics? Do you think people in the Southwest have more or less jobs in agriculture due to these physical characteristics?
After their tree map (rough draft) is completed, the students will be instructed to write their ideas in a friendly letter format. The idea of writing this friendly letter is to give their friend an understanding on how and why the Southwest’s physical characteristics directly impact food growth. The students must include 3 physical characteristics in their writing and at least one of their two impacts from the tree map.
Once their letters are completed, students will give their friendly letter to their partner.
Students will spend time reading their partners’ letters.
The teacher will ask the students to raise their hands and volunteer ideas that their partner’s had about the impacts of the physical characteristics.
These ideas will be written on the board. Once multiple ideas are written on the board, the teacher will have the students compare the impacts to the values that were written from earlier. The class will discuss how our values of food can be affected based on the physical characteristics of a region.
Collect their friendly letters as a ticket out the door.
RESOURCES Mr. Nussbaum. (2014). American Southwest interactive map, facts, statistics, games and activities for kids. Retrieved from: http://mrnussbaum.com/united-states/southwest/
US State Facts. (n.d.). US State facts Southwest region. Retrieved from: http://us-state-facts.com/US-State-Facts- Southwest-Region/US-State-Facts-Southwest-Region.html
Blank Map USA (n.d.) Wikimedia Commons. Retrieved from: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BlankMap- USA-Southwest-no-Utah.svg WAYS OF THINKING CONNECTION “Values thinking” is thinking about how the values we have affect our decisions. Different people have different values and seeing and trying to understand other people’s values is how values thinking is used in this lesson plan. Students have to think about what people value when it comes to food and that is one way they are using values thinking. The next way they are using it is by writing in their friendly letters how they feel the physical characteristics are related to food growth. When the students talk about the impacts of the physical characteristics they are sharing their values. When the students share their friendly letters they are reading about their partners values as well.