Final Project

I teach fifth grade and our school has recently integrated a great deal of technology into our school system. This allows my students to use our fully functionally Dell computer lab a few times a week, our rolling IPAD card each Friday and our rolling MacBook lab each Thursday. So to keep my students using these wonderful tools, I’ve created a research and report lesson for them. After they do the research they will be creating an essay on the research question.

Research Question: How does climate change affect Kodiak Island and what can I do to educate our community on climate change?

Teacher will begin the research lesson with a quick video on what climate change is:
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/environment/global-warming-environment/way-forward-climate.html

and then students will visit this website to “play” around.
http://epa.gov/climatechange/kids/index.html


Teacher Provided Questions to begin inquiry:

What is permafrost?
What is climate change?
What is an ice age?
How does wind affect our island?
How did the elders predict weather and climate change in the past years?

Teacher Provided Websites:

http://www.worldwatch.org/node/3949#b3
http://www.global-greenhouse-warming.com/
http://www.teachersdomain.org/resource/ean08.sci.ess.earthsys.inpassage/
http://www.teachersdomain.org/resource/ean08.sci.ess.watcyc.bakedalaska/
http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/index.html


After students have filled in the teacher created research form, they can begin to create the framework for their essay.

Essay Guidelines:
Now that you understand what climate change is, you are going to create an essay on how to inform the community of Kodiak about changes we can make locally. You must be persuasive in your essay and convince someone (mayor, local agencies, school board, etc.) what can be done to aid in this global concern.

Teachers can use the following rubric to score the completed essays:
www.readwritethink.org/files/.../PersuasiveWritingScoringGuide.pdf


Extended Activities:
http://www.teachablemoment.org/elementary/earthday.html
http://online.nwf.org/site/PageNavigator/ClimateClassroom/cc_about_climateclassroom
http://www.climatechangeeducation.org/k-12_schools/curriculum/elementary_school.html