Developmental Lesson Plan

Teacher Candidate: Taylor Atiyeh, Nicole Kohler, Samantha Sands, Jovanna Peters
Date: Monday, 11/1/21
Group Size: 24
Allotted Time: 50 minutes
Grade Level: 3

Subject or Topic: What is climate change?

Common Core/PA Standard(s):

- 4.1.3.E: Identify changes in the environment over time.

Learning Targets/Objectives: The students will be able to

- Students will identify what climate change is by completing a T-Chart based on two
pictures of the same environment.

Assessment Approaches: Evidence:

1) Color Cards (Red, Yellow, Green) 1) Observational
2) Complete a T-Chart based on two 2) T-Chart
pictures of the same environment
Assessment Scale:
2). Meets Expectations: 2 characteristics in each image.
Does not Meet Expectations: 0-1 characteristics in each image.

Subject Matter/Content:

Prerequisites: Climate, Weather, Temperature, Atmosphere

Key Vocabulary:

- Climate Change: Climate change describes a change in the average conditions — such
as temperature and rainfall — in a region over a long period of time.
- Global Warming: The rise in the average temperature of the land and water on Earth.
(magic school bus)

Content/Facts:
- Climate Change: A change in the average conditions in a region over a long period of
time.
- Natural Climate Change: Earth has experienced natural climate changes
(changes not caused by humans) over the past hundreds of thousands of years.
- Natural climate changes include ice ages and warming periods based on
the amount of the sun’s energy the atmosphere absorbed based on its
position in orbit.
 - Ice Ages: Period of time where Earth was covered in mostly glaciers.
There have been at least 7 major ice ages in history.
- Present Day Climate Change: Earth’s average temperature has been
increasing very quickly and not naturally.
- Scientists have agreed that recent changes in the climate are not due to
natural causes, instead they are because of human activity.
- Human activity and energy consumption contributes to increased
carbon emissions and greenhouse gasses. The atmosphere is
trapping more heat - greenhouse effect - warming the surface.
- Global Warming: a rise in the average temperature of the land and
water on Earth (School Bus)
- The temperature of Earth has been quickly increasing and
getting warmer and warmer, contributing to global warming.
- Warmer temperatures can cause changes, such as rising sea
levels, shrinking mountain glaciers, ice melting quickly, changes
in flower and plant blooming times
- Over the past 100 years, Earth’s temperature has gone up 2 degrees
fahrenheit.
- When the whole Earth’s temperature changes by one or two
degrees, that change can have big impacts on the health of
climates, plants and animals.
- Results of Climate Change / Global Warming
- Global warming affects more than the temperature.
- Storms (hurricanes, tornados, and blizzards) are more intense
- Widespread droughts
- Daily temperatures rise (Global Warming)
- Polar ice caps are melting
- Changes ocean chemistry, hurting coral reefs

Introduction/Activating/Launch Strategies:
- Pull up Washington Post article (
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/09/26/change-disasters-ki
ds-science-study/ ) as students get settled in their seats.
- Zoom in on the article title - “Today’s kids will live through three times as many
climate disasters as their grandparents, study says.”
- When all the students are seated, ask them to bring their eyes to the front board.
- Tell students, “Read the title in your head as I read it aloud.”
- Read the title out loud slowly and emphasize “three times as many climate disasters.”
- Ask students what they think this title means
- Prompt student responses by asking the following questions. Make sure to
provide time after each question for students to answer the questions within
their table groups.
- What are climate disasters?
 - “...Kids will see 3 times as many climate disasters as their
grandparents…” Does this mean that kids are witnessing more or less
climate disasters than their grandparents?
- Does this title / climate disasters sound like a good or bad thing?
- Provide two-three minutes for a whole group discussion about the answers.
- After the discussion, read the first three paragraphs of the article out loud to students.
- After reading the first two paragraphs, ask students if they have ever heard of
the word “climate change”
- Call on students to share their responses.
- Continue reading the last paragraph out loud.
- Ask students if they have ever experienced any of the climate disasters
provided.
- After reading the article, tell students that they will be learning more about what
climate change is and what happens because of it, like climate disasters and their
effects on the environment.
Development/Teaching Approaches

Content:
- Tell the students, “today, we are going to talk about climate change.”
- Pull up the slide 1 title slide on the Google Slides presentation (See materials
section for Slides presentation).
- If any students during the article activity mentioned that they knew what
climate change was, ask them to share what they think it is.
- While students are sharing, pass out a graphic organizer / guided notes sheet for
students to complete during the content presentation (See materials section for Guided
Notes sheet).
- After students finish sharing what they think climate change is move onto slide 2,
where the definition of climate change will be displayed.
- Read the definition outloud - “Climate change is a change or difference in the
average conditions in a region over a long period of time.”
- Ask students to fill in the blank on their guided notes sheet. They will be filling
in the yellow highlighted and underlined word. Show them where to fill in the
blank holding up a blank guided notes sheet.
- Repeat the definition again once most students have filled in their blank, and move
onto the next slide by saying, “So, let’s think about an example of climate change”

- Slide 3 will have 2 pictures from the movie “Ice Age.”

- Ask the students if anyone is familiar with the picture / if anyone knows what movie
this picture is from.
- Students who have seen the movie should answer that the movie is called “Ice
Age.”
- For those students who don’t know the movie, give a quick summary about
how this movie takes place during an ice age on earth.
- Once the word “ice age” is brought into discussion, ask students “Let’s think about
what an ice age is? What is the climate like during an ice age?”
- Tell students to look at the pictures on the screen if they need a hint.
 - Call on students to share some of their ideas.
- After students share out, move onto slide 4 and define what an ice age is / affirm
correct answers.
- Tell students, “An Ice age is a period of time when Earth was mostly covered
in glaciers. The latest ice age occurred 20,000 years ago.”
- Ask students, “Does Earth still look like this today? Are we in an ice age right
now?”
- Emphasize that the answer is no. “When we walk outside, we do not
see glaciers.”
- Tell students that the transition from an ice age to the present day
climate is an example of climate change.

- Pose this question to students while moving onto slide 5: “Let’s put on our thinking
caps. How did the climate change? How did the cold, glacier filled climate change to
the ‘normal’ climate we experience today?”
- Prompt student answers by asking…
- “Did humans pick up all the ice and move it?” “Did the ice melt?”
- Allow some students to share their ideas.
- Explain to students that this climate change occurred naturally, on its own. Ice
ages occurred because of the Earth’s position in orbit.
- Show students the simulation of Earth’s orbit using the following link
on slide 6 -
https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2948/milankovitch-orbital-cycles-and-thei
r-role-in-earths-climate/
- Show students where in the simulation the Earth is furthest from the
sun, indicating a time where an ice age occurred on Earth. The Earth
was further from the sun.
- Emphasize that this climate change (ice age to now) occurred naturally,
without any human impact, one more time to students.

- Move onto slide 7 by saying, “Not all climate change happens naturally. In fact,
today’s climate change is caused by human activity and global warming.”
- Ask students what they think global warming means.
- Prompt students by saying, “Think about the two words - Global and
Warming”
- Call on a few students to share their responses.
- Explain to students that the Earth’s temperature has been rising quickly.
- This means that the air and the water on Earth is getting warmer and warmer by
the minute.
- This is called global warming.
- Bring attention to the chart on slide 7.
- “Looking at the chart, we can see the lines going UP! These are Earth’s
average temperatures going up.”
- Ask students to fill in the blank for global warming on their guided
notes sheet while modeling the fill in on the board.
 - They will fill in the yellow highlighted and underlined word on
their sheets.

- Once the students have filled out the blank space on their guided notes sheet, continue
to slide 8.
- Tell students that global warming is caused by human activity on Earth.
- Ask students to look at the two pictures on slide 8.
- “What do you all see in these photos?”
- “What might be some things in the pictures that are causing global
warming?”
- Draw attention to the grey smoke and the emotions on the Earth and
woman’s face.
- After students share out, explain that pollution and carbon emissions cause
global warming, or cause the temperatures on earth to rise.
- Tell students that they will be learning more about this in tomorrow’s
lesson.
- Ask students if they are ready to learn about some examples and look at some pictures
of climate change.

- Beginning on slide 9, tell students that global warming changes the climate in other
ways, not just warming temperatures.
- A few climate change examples include….
- Slide 9: severe and intense storms, such as hurricanes, tornados, and
blizzards
- Slide 10: droughts
- Slide 11: ice caps and ice sheets are melting
- Slide 12: coral reefs dying
- Tell students that these are only a few changes, and they will be learning more
about the environmental impacts later in the unit.

- Ask students how they feel about climate change and global warming definitions.
- Using their Red, Yellow, and Green cards on their desk…
- Tell students to hold up the Red card if they still don’t know what
climate change / global warming is,
- Yellow if they are unsure about climate change / global warming
- Green if they are confident about climate change / global warming.
- After everyone puts up a card, tell students that we are going to look at two
pictures of the same environment BEFORE and AFTER climate change
occurred.

T-Chart Activity:
- On slide 13, there will be two pictures of the same environment before and after
climate change. Display this slide on the board for students to see.
- Tell students, “Look at these two pictures. Although they look very different,
the pictures are actually the SAME exact environment.”
 - “I want you all to look at these two pictures for a few minutes and think about
what changes you see in the pictures.”
- Give students 2 minutes to think in their heads about what they see.
- As students are thinking, put up a piece of chart paper with a T-Chart already
drawn on.
- After students are done thinking in their heads, ask students to share what
changes they saw with their elbow partners (the person sitting next to them).
- Give students 2 minutes to talk with their partner.
- Bring students’ attention back to the front.
- Tell students that you will go first as an example. ‘
- They can bring their attention to the two pictures at the bottom of their notes
sheet for a closer look.
- “Although these two pictures look very different, they are actually the
same place.”
- “This is the Muir Glacier in Alaska in August 1941. The other picture
is the same Muir Glacier in Alaska in August 2004.”
- “In the first picture, I see snow on the top of the mountains but in the
second picture I do not see any snow on top of the mountains.”
- While saying these differences outloud, write them in the
corresponding columns on the front board T chart.
- Tell students, “I am going to write the characteristics for image
1, under the “image one” column in the T chart and I am going
to write the characteristics for image 2 under the “image 2”
column in the T Chart.”
- After adding it to the T Chart, ask students to share what they see
changing in the pictures, and write student responses in the T chart.
- Some student responses may include…
- Image #1: Lots of ice in the middle, no trees
- Image #2: Water in the middle of the picture, ice in the
back, green trees and shrubbery on the left of the picture.
- Once students have shared what differences they saw, explain to
students that these changes indicate examples of climate change.
- Ask students, “Is this climate change?” “What’s happening
here?”
- Have students share in their table groups, and then share out
loud.
- End the discussion by telling students, “By looking at these two
pictures, we can infer that global warming caused all of the ice
in the middle and the snow on top of the mountains to melt.
This change in the environment is climate change.

- After completing the activity together, students will work together in their tables to
look at different pictures displaying climate change.
- Prepare students by passing out the pictures and T chart worksheets to each
table.
 - Tell students, “Now, you all will be completing the same activity in your table
groups, but this time with different climate change pictures.”

- Give each student a T chart with image 1 written on one side and image 2 written on
the other side (See materials section for T Chart worksheet).
- Then, give each group (4 groups) 2 different images that depict climate change in an
environment (See materials section for environment pictures).
- The images given to the groups are labeled “image 1” and “image 2” (image 1
is the environment before climate change and image 2 is the environment after
climate change)(each group will get different pictures).
- Explain to students
- “Now it’s your turn to look at climate change! You will work with your groups
to look at the pictures and write the characteristics that change in each picture
under the matching column in the T chart.
- This is the same thing we did together as a group a few moments ago.
- Does anyone have any questions? Good luck, and I will be walking around to
see what you all find.”
- As students are working, go to each group and ask questions about the
characteristics they found in the images.
- Some questions to ask include: “What do you notice in this image? Do
you notice any differences between the images?”
- Conference with each group and continue listening to conversations and
respond to any questions or concerns the students might have.
- After 15 minutes, or when each group has completed their T chart, bring the class back
together to discuss the next activity.
- Explain that each group will be doing a gallery walk to the other tables to check
out different examples of climate change.
- Tell students, “During the gallery walk, you can look at other groups’
pictures that show different examples of climate change!
- While you are walking, take notice of your other friends’ T charts to see
what they wrote down.”

- Provide 5 minutes for students to travel to other tables and look at the pictures. As
students begin to return to their seats, ask a few questions about the activity.
- Prompt students by asking, “Did you see anything surprising? Unusual? Have
you seen these climate changes before and in-person?
- Give students the chance to share out to the class
- Collect the T-Charts after 5 minutes of discussion.

Closure/Summarizing Strategies:
- After completing the T-Chart activity and discussing the answers as a class, move onto
the closing activity.
 - Pull up a BrainPop video (
https://www.brainpop.com/science/earthsystem/climatechange/ ) to review the content
presented to students.
- Watch from 3:32 - 5:42.
- Pause the video occasionally to discuss and review the content.
- 3:56 - Look at the graph and ask students to think about the natural climate
change we discussed, such as the ice ages.
- Ask students, “where on the graph may indicate a time of extreme cold
weather?”
- Have students come up to the board and point on the graph.
- 5:07 - The video explains that rising temperatures may lead to extreme weather
patterns and conditions.
- Ask students, “What are some of these extreme weather patterns and conditions
that we discussed today?”
- Have students raise their hands and share out some answers
(Hurricanes, tornados, storms).
- 5:43 - The video says that this is a pretty scary situation.
- Ask students, “what do you think about this statement? Do you agree or
disagree that climate change is a scary situation?”
- Have students discuss the question with their tables and ask students to
share their opinions with the class.
- Wrap up the lesson by telling students that we are going to learn about global warming
and how it happens in tomorrow's lesson.

Accommodations/Differentiation:
Follow all IEPs
-Student(s) with a visual impairment will be accommodated with enlarged print of the pictures
and an audio, recorded copy of the teacher's presentation.

Materials/Resources:
- Washington Post Article
(https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/09/26/change-disasters-k
ids-science-study/)
- Google Slides Presentation ( EEU 305 First Lesson Plan Content )(Figures 1.2, 1.2,
1.3)
- 26 copies of Guided Notes Sheet ( EEU 305 Guided Notes Sheet )(Figure 1.4)
- Chart Paper
- Black Marker
- 26 copies of T-Chart ( T Chart )(Figure 1.5)
- 4 Climate Change Before and After paired pictures ( T Chart Activity Pictures )
(Figure 1.6, 1.7, 1.8, 1.9)
- Brain Pop Video (https://www.brainpop.com/science/earthsystem/climatechange/)
- 26 sets of Red, Yellow, and Green cards

Reflective Response:
Report of Student Learning Target/Objectives Proficiency Levels
 Remediation Plan (if applicable)

Personal Reflection Questions

Additional reflection/thoughts

Figures:

1.1 -

1.2 -
1.3 -

1.4 -
1.5 -

1.6 -
1.7 -

1.8 -
1.9 -
 References:
Climate Change. (2021). BrainPop.

https://www.brainpop.com/science/earthsystem/climatechange/

Earth Science Communications Team. (2021, October). What is Climate Change? NASA

Climate Kids. https://climatekids.nasa.gov/climate-change-meaning/

Greshko, Michael. (2018, January). Window to Save World’s Coral Reefs Closing Rapidly.

National Geographic.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/coral-bleaching-reefs-climate-change

-el-nino-environment

Osborne, Hannah. (2014, September). California Drought: ‘This is not a Projection, Global

Warming is Playing a Role Right Now.’ International Business Times.

https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/california-drought-this-not-projection-global-warming-playing

-role-right-now-1467721

Hazard, G. D. (1880). Muir Glacier: From the Glacier Photograph Collection [Photograph].

National Snow and Ice Data Center.

https://nsidc.org/data/glacier_photo/search/image_info/muir1880000001?order=true

Kaplan, Sarah. (2021, September). Today’s Kids Will Live Through Three Times as Many Climate

Disasters as their Grandparents, Study Says. The Washington Post.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2021/09/26/change-disasters-kids

-science-study/

Katzman, Rebecca. (2018, August). What is Global Warming? Time for Kids.

https://www.timeforkids.com/g34/global-warming/

McGrath, Matt. (2020, January). Climate Change: Last Decade Confirmed as Warmest on
 Record. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-51111176

Molnia, Bruce. (2005). Muir Glacier: From the Glacier Photograph Collection [Photograph].

National Snow and Ice Data Center.

https://nsidc.org/data/glacier_photo/search/image_info/muir2005081103?order=true

Muir Glacier Melt, Alaska (n.d.). NASA Global Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet.

https://climate.nasa.gov/images-of-change?id=376#376-muir-glacier-melt-alaska

Northwestern Glacier Melt, Alaska. (n.d.). NASA Global Climate Change: Vital Signs of the

Planet.

https://climate.nasa.gov/images-of-change?id=393#393-northwestern-glacier-melt-alaska

Shaw, Allyson. (n.d.). Climate Change. National Geographic Kids.

https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/climate-change