Gwynedd Mercy University

School of Business and Education

Name: Amanda Dunn Grade/Level Fourth

Topic: Pollution

PA Core or Academic Standard(s): PDE: E&E: 4.5. Humans and the Environment

Big Idea(s): Students will discover the effects of pollution and the near irreversibility
harmful substances can have on the water we need to sustain our lives, through their own
efforts to extract pollution form a liquid.

Essential Questions: How do humans harm their environment? In what ways could we
better the ways in which we treat and interact with our planet? How can we reinforce the
practice of recycling, and using less straws?

Objective/Performance Expectation: What will students know and be able to do as a

result of this lesson?

Students will demonstrate their understating of pollution purification and its difficulties
by simulating removing harmful substances from every day drinking water, and
comparing it to clean water.

I. PLANNING AND PREPARATION:

1. Briefly describe the students in your class, including those with special
needs. Explain how you will meet the needs of ALL learners
(Differentiated Instruction).
This is a fourth-grade classroom comprised of 16 girls and 12 boys. Within
this room, three IEPs have been implemented for learning accommodations,
along with two 504 plans for behavioral intervention and accommodations as
well. One of the individualized education programs has been set up for a
student in gifted support. Her plan allows for further enrichment, and time to
leave the classroom, and join her fellow peers in the same program, in their
ow classroom for an hour out of each day. One of the children has high
functioning Asperger’s. He has a sensitivity to certain sensory textures, and
some interactions with peers. I give him the choice of moving his desk a few
inches away from his classmates, to sperate himself from commotion if he
feels like it would help to do so. The third IEP is for a visual impairment,
which we accommodate with an auditory app on the iPad, along with braille
readers. The 504 plans are for behavioral accommodation which consists of

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 breaks from the classroom if they get frustrated. They can go take a walk to
the end of the hallway or get a sip of water. This is to allow them to refresh
their minds and avoid any disruptions that may have been caused if they
couldn’t take a step away from whatever situation was upsetting them. The
other leaners in my class have a strong preference to hands-on explorative
leaning, as opposed to lectures.

2. List the specific standard and expectations as outlined in the PA

Core/Academic Standards (SAS).

PDE E&E 4.5. Humans and the Environment

4.5.4.C: Describe how human activities affect the environment

3. Explain the psychological principles/theories you used in constructing this

lesson and explain how it is manifested in the lesson.

I will promote the ideas of Albert Banduras’ Social Learning theory, as it pertains with a
child’s interactions with their surroundings, including people and the physical
environment. They can pull knowledge from everything they observe around them. This
pertains to the lesson because they can look out for pollution and the effects it has on
water and air quality. I will also incorporate George Siemen’s connectivism theory. This
will allow for them to draw connections from the lesson to their own lives, and then
allow for that to encourage them to develop better practices in their days to protect the
earth.

II. CLASSROOM ENVIRONMENT:

4. Describe the effective classroom routines and procedures resulting in

little or no loss of instructional time.
Every class commences with a daily “Do Now”. This ranges from two to five questions
on half a sheet of paper. They pertain to the background information needed for the
lessons that day. I quickly collect the papers as the students finish and reward them over.
I determine what the class collectively knows pretty well, and what could be reviewed
further in the lesson. This will save time because I won’t waste time addressing concepts
they have already acquired. The schedule remains the same every day, except for
specials, depending upon the day of the week, and they are also adjusted in the vent of an
early dismissal or a two-hour delay. Other than that, it remains the same, and the students
have adapted to the daily routines. Transitions are silent between lessons. All Materials
are prepped before the lesson, with my at-home planning, and with the help of the
students based on their assigned classroom jobs. These are changed very week.

5. Identify what you will do to set clear standards of conduct and behavior
management of student behavior.

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The discipline in this class will rely mainly on positive reinforcement through the
promotion of internal and external rewards. Because of their age level and maturity, they
are expected to follow the behavioral guidelines we all agree upon during the first week
of school. If they fail to do so, they will receive one constructive conversation with me to
try and redirect the behavior. If they fail to make the correction, I will deduct five
minutes from their recess time, however that would be more of a last result. We will also
all be represented on the building character chart. Every time someone participates in an
act of kindness, their name will be added to the chart. They will be stacked one-by-one
until they reach the top of the building drawn on the chart. Once they do so, they can
generate a list of rewards, and vote on the one they like the best. The reward with the
most votes will be granted to them.

6. Identify what you will do to establish expectations for student

achievement.
At the beginning of the lesson I will state the objective of the lesson verbally, and I will
also have it written on the board next to the science section of our daily agenda. I will
encourage them to take note of what they notice about pollution in their lives, and how
often they see it. I will want them to then reflect upon what they do evert day to wither
contribute to harming the earth, or they help it. I will then remind them to find ways to
better care for the world they live in.

III. INSTRUCTION:

List Materials Needed

 Dixie Cup
 Coffee Filter
 Rubber Band
 Rocks
 Cotton balls
 Scissors
 Jar of polluted water

7. Motivation Activities/Strategies: (1 point)

How will you generate interest or focus your lesson for the students?

“How many of you recycle? How many of you have ever seen trash on the road while
you were looking out the window in your cars? Has anyone ever seen really dirty water?
How do we think the trash ends up where it isn’t supposed to be? How does water get so
dirty?”
I will play an Earth Day video about how to care for the Earth and the importance of
keeping our planet clean for all of us who inhabit it. I will also show them a video of the
effect of pollution. I will ask them to compare the two and provide any feedback they can
think of.

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 8. Prior Knowledge Activities/Strategies: (1 point)
How will you activate prior knowledge, build background, or review
previous lessons?

I will have the students complete a K-W-L chart to refresh their minds on what they
already know, and what they hope to learn more about. They can do this independently
and then meet with partners one at a time to compare list and add items to their own lists.

9. Sequence of Lesson: What learning activities/strategies will you use to

engage the students in the learning? What will students do to use and
apply new concepts or skills (independent practice if relevant)? How will
you monitor and guide their performance? Include relevant vocabulary.
(Please use bullets to sequence your lesson)

 I will hand out a K-W-L chart, and ask the students to fill out the
first column about what they already know about pollution, and I
will ask them to generate a list of things they would like to learn
through their inquiry during the course of this lesson
 I will ask a few questions to gear the student’s thinking. I will
show two videos, one about the effects of pollution on the air,
water, animals, etc. all around us, and one about how the Earth
could be if we took better care of it.
 I will initiate a class discussion where five students can volunteer
to share what they leaned from the video, what it makes them
think, or how it made them feel. I will also ask for a few more
students to connect what they saw in the video to what they have
seen any time they have been outside recently.
 I will share a PowerPoint that touches on the basics of the lesson. I
will provide them with some new terms and provide pictures that
correspond with the content. This will provide them with
background knowledge or build upon what they already knew prior
to today.
 I will have students count off by fours and divide into their
assigned number groups.
 Each group will be given a jar with polluted water. They will also
be given a coffee filter, a Dixie cup, and some rocks, cotton balls,
scissors, and a rubber band.
 The students will cut out the bottom of the Dixie cup, and attach
the coffee welter on the bottom of the newly cut rim of the cup,
using the rubber band.
 They will layer the bottom of the coffee filter with rocks and
cotton balls to catch the pollution.

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  They will hold it over a bowl and pour the polluted water into the
pollution catcher.
 They will wait until all the purified water comes out into the bowl,
and observe the changes in its appearance,
 The lab sheet will be composed of three questions. The first will
include a section to list observations of the dirty water before the
filtration, and also list the observations of the water after the
filtration. This question will also have a box to draw what they see
in the before and after stages of the water. The second question
will ask them to list what they learned about pollution. They can
later copy this information onto the “L” section of the KWL chart.
The last question will be a reflection and self-evaluation. The
students will be asked how they can improve the frequency of how
often they recycle, skip using a straw, pick up some trash they see
on the grounds of their community, etc.
 I will collect the sheets at the end and give them a grade on
completeness and use the question about what they learned as
feedback to then guide what I reinforce and what I teach next.

10. Level of Learning/Assessment Evidence (1 point)

How will you know if students grasped the material? What
techniques/strategies will you use to assess learning (Bloom’s
Taxonomy)? Identify what informal and/or formal assessments you will
use to monitor student learning. Also identify if this will be formative or
summative.
I will pay close attention to the feedback the students gave in the class discussion. I will
ask students one on one for some additional feedback, if they weren’t comfortable
enough to speak in the large group setting. I will walk around and follow up with groups
as they conduct the experiment. That will function s my informal assessment. The formal
assessment will be reflected through their lab sheets, and I will evaluate them for a grade
on completeness and I will write positive and constructive feedback on the papers.

11. What will you do to bring closure to the lesson? How will you summarize
this lesson and preview the lesson that will follow?

Today we learned all about pollution and how it negatively impacts our world. We also
learned that is isn’t too late to make some changes, and to start taking better care of the
home we share with other life forms. What are some ways we can do that today, in
school, and when we get home? Tomorrow we will transition into learning about
extinction of species.