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By Allan Drummond. Published on March 1, 2011.

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Text Structure: Problem-Solution

Summary:

(a) This picture book tells the story of an island community that worked together to lower their carbon footprints through the use of renewable energy. The characters’ journeys begin when a scientist comes to their island with the hope of working with the community to find ways to use their wind and solar resources to create sustainable energy. This directly connects to my standard, which asks students to gather information about how individual communities use science ideas to protect the Earth’s environment. The text also includes informative descriptions of some of the different types of renewable energy sources, giving students a deeper insight as to how we can use this science idea to protect our planet.

(b) While this book does contain itself to one individual community, as the standard asks for, the renewable energy sources represented are typically seen as a more large-scale way of protecting our planet. These sources are costly and have a greater impact in some areas than they do in others. With that being said, though this idea involves a lot of science, it isn’t necessarily a science idea that the students could implement or work with themselves. Additionally, the text only aids itself to explaining some ways that individual communities can use science ideas to protect our environment. In response to the unit’s standard, I will want students to learn about a variety of methods that aren’t presented in this source.

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1. Grade Level: 5th Grade

2. Content Area: Science

3. Topic(s): Using Science Ideas, Protecting the Environment

4. Why?: I chose this learning standard because I think that there are many ways to expand on what it is asking for. This standard could be easily taught by asking students to memorize certain facts, so I hope to disrupt this method by creating a unit that is engaging for students in various ways and therefore strengthening their learning in the process.

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5-ESS3-1  Obtain and combine information about ways individual communities use science ideas to protect the Earth’s resources and environment.

Unpacking the Graphic Standards Organizer

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How can we keep our community clean and protect its environment?

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Ecological Knowledge Building & Identity Development

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Ecological Knowledge Building & Identity Development

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Anchoring Theme: Kinship

The chosen learning standard is about protecting Earth’s resources and environment. This is an example of kinship as students will learn about their responsibility to care for, and not destroy, our world. In our Unit Plan, students will learn about their responsibility (and ability) to care for our community and its environment.

Ecological Identity Goal: Students will understand that we can care for and support, as well as harm, this world that we share with one another, thereby strengthening their care and appreciation for the natural environment.

a. Students will begin to see the ways that they can leave their mark on our planet, whether good or bad. During their learning, their sense of self strengthens as they see themselves as caretakers of our planet.

b. Students will learn that their actions can have both positive and negative consequences on Earth’s environment. By learning about this, students can go forward conscious of these effects that they and their peers have on Earth.

c. The students will be asking questions about and interacting with their own community, allowing the topic to be relevant to everyone involved. The knowledge they learn can then be applied to a larger scale.

d. In a consumerist society, our world is full of waste. This waste directly harms our planet and speeds the process of climate change. By discussing ways that we can be less wasteful of materials (such as plastic), energy, water, and more, students can build habits that help to preserve their community’s resources.

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Formative Assessment for "KNOW":

Quick Write

Students will be given ten to fifteen minutes to write about their choice of a ‘science idea’ used to protect Earth’s resources and environment. In addition to describing the science idea, they will explain how that idea has been and/or will be implemented. They will be encouraged to include drawings to support their writing, if desired. This will be done near the beginning of the unit when students are first learning about what science ideas are used to protect our Earth. This interdisciplinary activity will show me which ‘science ideas’ the students are most eager about as well as how much they know about these ideas on the top of their head. If students are not able to describe their choice in much detail, I will likely need to go through more “KNOW” activities before moving on. Either way, for future activities, I can engage my students’ interests by involving and highlighting their chosen science ideas.

Formative Assessment for "UNDERSTAND":

Enter and Exit Slip

Before beginning a lesson on if and how we can begin to reverse the harm done on Earth’s environment, students will be asked on a half sheet of paper, “Do you think that we can reverse the damage done to our environment over time? If so, how? If not, why?” Students will be given about five to ten minutes to respond to the prompt. After the lesson, students will be asked to write on the back of the paper if their opinions changed and why or why not. This assessment will allow me to see how students’ understanding altered (or didn’t alter) from the beginning to the end of the lesson. It will also show me how optimistic students are about their situation (for example, a student could argue that their opinion that we cannot reverse any of the damage done on Earth did not change because they do not believe that enough people will react quick enough to the issue). If optimism is low, I can create activities focused on lifting these fixed mindsets.

Formative Assessment for "DO":

Engaging in Community Care

Near the end of the unit, students will form small groups that will each pick something they can do to take care of their community’s environment and will then collaboratively perform that action over time (e.g. pick up litter, reduce plastic waste). While completing this, they will log what and when they did this service, as well as a brief reflection on how the act made them feel (the structure of this log may vary depending on what the activity is). This will demonstrate the students’ understanding that they can care for their community’s environment through action as well as make visual their feelings around actively doing so. This activity will later connect to a summative assessment, as well.

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Written by Michelle Lord, Illustrated by Julia Blattman. Published on January 1, 2020.

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Text Structure: Cause/Effect

Summary:

(a) This text is about how humans’ actions have created a ripple-effect of problems for our environment with a focus placed on bodies of water. It is important to give students this base understanding- that humans are the cause of our climate crisis and that we are the only thing that can truly save our planet. It also insists that our actions affect more than what we can immediately see by showing how one negative effect can lead to another (something that I believe is an important understanding). The text does not revolve around this unit’s standard, but a true understanding of our standard and its importance relies on this base knowledge. Additionally, the text more directly connects to the standard in its last few pages, where it explains that we have the power to also let our actions save the Earth.

(b) While the text acknowledges ways that we can help protect our environment, the examples are given in very broad terms and it is likely that only some examples will feel as though they are in the students’ control. Additionally, students here in Illinois are much less likely to come across large bodies of water, which this text focuses on. While we have lakes that are local to us, this text focuses on saltwater and we still cannot assume that every student here accesses the lakes that are nearby. With all of this being said, I would want to use this text at the beginning of the unit to help introduce the concept before honing in on the topic with elaborating/detailed texts and texts that feel more relevant to students’ immediate lives.

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Assessing the Text Complexity of the Shared Core Text

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Assessing the Text Complexity of the Shared Core Text

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Affordances:

1. The text uses features that would assist students in reading and comprehending the text. The fact/side bar boxes are especially helpful as they elaborate on the different types of renewable energy presented in the story.

2. The text has a clear beginning, middle, and end sequence that allows the reader to make explicit connections between ideas. The narrator shares their experience in a linear fashion, building onto ideas and educating us along the way.

Obstacles:

1. The text relies on domain specific vocabulary and the understanding of the concepts that depend on said vocabulary. Multiple types of renewable energy are introduced and, while they are elaborated on in some detail, are likely generally unfamiliar to students. This makes the text’s language demands “Moderately High” for fifth graders.

2. The structure of this text isn’t abundantly clear. It may be confused with cause and effect, so students may need support in identifying the text structure and determining why it is problem-solution and not cause and effect. This misunderstanding will likely happen due to the fact that the text doesn’t clearly lay out the problem presented and more so focuses on its solution.

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1. A Nearby Park (for example, Anderson Park)

Students will go around a local park collecting and litter/trash that they see. In order to better connect this to science, they will bring their items back to the classroom and discuss what can be recycled or composted versus being thrown away, and then dispose of the items accordingly.

2. Local Community Walk

This community walk would ask students to focus on finding and noting things that they see on their walk that are good for and/or help the environment. For example, students might note when they see solar panels, gardens, planted trees, etc. This can then be used to discuss how their community is already working to help their environment as well as how they can expand that.

3. Local Wind Farm (for example, Twin Groves Wind Farm)

This would be less effective if students were to see a wind farm in person, so it would be best to have an employee or representative from the company visit the classroom to talk about their wind farms (how they work, their effects, etc.). Doing a virtual tour of wind farms would benefit students, as well, seeing as they could likely explore more factors of the windmills online than they could in person.

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Written by Rina Singh, Illustrated by Marianne Ferrer. Published on October 6, 2020.

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Text Structure: Sequence

Summary:

(a) This text teaches students about a specific time when someone made a difference in helping to protect their community’s environment. With this, students get to see how one person was able to make such a large impact. Additionally, this text incorporates a unique and diverse perspective as it takes place in a village in India. This representation allows students to begin to see how different cultures around the world go about taking care of nature in their own unique ways. Even more so, this story looks to uplift women and the value of their community inclusion and involvement.

(b) The impact made in this story comes from a grown man with influence and power in his village. The issues presented in the story are also likely to be different than the environmental issues the students’ community faces. Because of this, students may find it less inspiring than other texts, seeing as it would be immensely difficult for them to make a similar change in their local community. In order to combat this, we can ask students to reflect- in relation to the text- on what issue they would like to change in their community and how they might be able to make an impact to reach their desire. This makes it so that they can envision how they might be able to make a change similarly to the text’s main character, even if with an entirely different approach.

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Text Complexity Factor:

On the GATES Checklist for my shared core text, I noted that the language demands were “moderately high” due to its use of discipline specific vocabulary. The language demands of this multimodal text are low, which makes this text more accessible for students to read as individuals or in partners.

Summary:

(a) This multimodal text is useful in showing students how important it is that we use the science ideas we have discovered in order to protect our environment. Throughout this unit, students will be exploring several science ideas that have been used to improve the Earth’s environmental status in both small and large scale areas. This text helps us see that, despite these ideas and their success, they are often left ignored and unused so that their impact is kept small. It is a painful reminder that we often do not prioritize our environment enough. We see here, too, countries that do prioritize caring for their environment and the positive effect that this has.

(b) This text does not show us factors that might directly impact each country’s ability to make climate change progress, such as their economic status. When criticizing countries that are not making progress, we need to be able to consider this. For example, the US could certainly afford to take more actions towards protecting our environment if it placed its priority here. Other countries in the yellow/orange/red, however, might not have the same privileges and resources. On the other hand, some countries in green might have less resources and are showing progress nonetheless. We would want to educate students on this, so further research should be done alongside the interaction of this text.

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Planning for Instruction with the Shared Core Text

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Planning for Instruction with the Shared Core Text

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How will students read the shared core text?:

I would have students read text this independently or in partners (whichever they prefer). Students should be able to read this text on their own as its Lexile is at a fifth grade reading level and there are pictures and definitions within the text to aid the reading and comprehension process. Since this text is rather lengthy, many students may prefer to read it on their own. However, not all students may be at a fifth grade reading level, so partnering up may assist them in getting through the reading.

Comprehension Strategies:

Before: First Lines

Before reading the text, students will read the first line of the book- “Welcome to Energy Island! The real name of our island is Samsø, but we like to call it ‘Energy Island,’”- and make predictions about what the book will be about and/or what it might teach them. This guides students in making predictions about the text in a scientific way as they are asked to draw on their background knowledge with the significant mention of the word ‘energy’ in that first line.

During: Reading Guide

This text is rather information-heavy and includes many important facts, details, and definitions amongst its narrative. By filling out a reading guide as they explore the text (either individually or in pairs), students will be able to better keep up with the text’s content. Additionally, questions in the reading guide would be based around the most important information in the text that best connects to our standards, hopefully ensuring that students focus on the parts of the text that I intend for them to focus on.

After: Listicles

After reading the text, students are given the opportunity to break down what they read by writing a short summary and/or a bullet pointed list that recounts the most important parts of the text. This helps them to further break apart the text and their thoughts in order to limit confusion from this somewhat-loaded picture book. Additionally, this activity allows for summaries to be created in the form of drawings, which is a very helpful accommodation for ELLs and students with learning disabilities. Students may keep their summaries to refer back to later.

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Tier II & Tier III Vocabulary Words:

Island

Energy

Renewable

Harnessing

Resources

First, I chose the word ‘island’ because it is essential to understanding the text as it is used often and is specific to the story being told. Next, I chose the words ‘energy,’ ‘renewable,’ ‘harnessing,’ and ‘resources’ because these are all significant to the discussion around protecting our climate. The text focuses on lowering carbon emissions through renewable energy, so it is extremely essential that students understand what renewable energy is, how we use it, and why we need to use it; each of these words (used in the context of this text) helps to strengthen that understanding.

Vocabulary Strategies:

Before: T-I-P Chart

It is rather essential to students comprehension that they understand the terms above as used in the context of this text. This strategy will allow students to (as a whole class) create a chart with each term and its definition as well as a relevant drawing. This chart will then be readily available to students as they go through the text. The use of images in this chart further assists all students, especially ELLs and students with disabilities, as they can connect the word to their own drawing and the images in the picture book.

During: Alpha Boxes

There is a lengthy list of Tier II and III words in this text that go far beyond what I included above. Because of this, students can benefit from identifying several other important vocabulary terms in the text as they read. This helps to make sure that students aren’t only focusing on the words mentioned in the ‘before’ activity.

After: Graffiti

Using what they added to their ‘alpha boxes’ during their reading, students will each pick or be assigned to one important term found in the text. Using the text, students will create some sort of visual of that word that displays its meaning which will then be compiled into a word wall. This allows students to explore, in depth, a wider variety of vocabulary terms without taking up too much time. Additionally, we again see this especially benefitting ELLs and students with learning disabilities as they are able to communicate their learning with drawings rather than with only words.

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Text Complexity Factor:

On the GATES Checklist for my shared core text, I noted that the language demands were "moderately high" due to its use of discipline specific vocabulary. The language demands of this multimodal text are low, which makes this text mire accessible for students to read as individuals or in partners.

Ideally, I would use this choice text to acknowledge a different category on the GATES Checklist than I did for Choice Text #1, but this was the only category marked as "high" or "moderately high" in this instance.

Summary:

(a) This multimodal text shows a specific example of where an individual helped to clean their environment. This is important as our standard focuses on 'individual communities.' In order to better connect to our standard, students might be asked, "How can we explain, using scientific reasoning, why cleaning up this space is good for our environment?" Additionally, this specific image is useful as there is a clear difference in how healthy and beautiful the space looks after it is cleared of its litter. We can use this to reason that the plants in the area might grow better under these conditions.

(b) As stated before, this text does not immediately connect itself to 'science ideas,' as the standard asks for (although picking up litter is technically a science idea when connected to understanding the affects of pollution). Due to this, activities around the text would need to be intentionally connected to the scientific ideas surrounding the act of reducing litter. Additionally, the idea of littering and picking up litter is likely a topic that students are already familiar with. On its own, this picture might not teach individual students much about caring for our environment. Because of this, activities around this core text must also intentionally involve the discussion of why it is important to keep our community clear of trash and the benefits that come from doing so.

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How the Supplemental Text Supports the Shared Core Text:

(1) On the GATES Checklist, I noted that the Shared Core Text was "moderately high" for the language demands. This supplemental text is "low" in language demands while providing information about how humans have created the negative effects that our standard works to limit.

(2) On the GATES Checklist, I noted that the Shared Core Text has a "Problem Solution" text structure while including several text features. This supplemental text uses a "Cause/Effect" text structure while limiting the amount of text features it includes. This text structure helps to teach us how human actions can have both positive and negative effects on our climate.

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How Students Will Read the Text:

Students will read this text independently. Students should be able to read this text on their own as its Lexile is below a fifth grade reading level and there are pictures and repetition within the text to aid the reading and comprehension process.

Comprehension Strategies:

Before: Introducing a New Book

Before reading this text, students will be asked to independently preview the book. To do this, they will look at the cover and briefly glance over the text while generating predictions that they have about it. The main thing students will be asked to look for/predict is the message that the author was trying to share when creating this writing.

During: Reciprocal Teaching

Between reading passages of the text on their own, students will be asked to participate in a slightly altered version of reciprocal teaching. Before reading, students will collaboratively (in groups of three) share the predictions they individually created in their 'before' strategy. At the end of each page spread, one student will be in charge of clarifying their groups' predictions, one student will be in charge of asking questions about the text, and another will be in charge of summarizing that page spread. Students will then rotate roles as they continue their reading.

After: Directed Reading Thinking Activity

Since we are only using this strategy at the end of their reading, students will be asked to complete the "Thinking" portion of this strategy. Using this, students will independently think back to their 'before' strategy and confirm or revise their predictions about the text and the author's message, using text evidence.

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How Students Will Read the Text:

I would read this text to the whole class in an interactive read aloud. This text is at a 950 Lexile, which is near the high-end of a fifth grade level. Many students would be able to read this text on their own. However, since the text is lengthy and rather loaded with Tier II and III words, I would want to read this text as a whole class in order to better include appropriate vocabulary teaching and to get through the text at an acceptable rate.

Comprehension Strategies:

Before: Inquiry Charts

Before reading the text, students will be asked, in partners, to fill out an inquiry chart for the text. With this, students will briefly preview the text and record what they already know and what questions they currently have about the topic.

During: Life Road Maps

During the interactive read aloud, students will be asked to independently fill out a life road map chart for our main character, Sundar. In this chart, students will document the important events in Sundar's life, based on the events in the text.

After: S-I-T (Surprising, Interesting, Troubling)

After completing the interactive read aloud for this text, students will independently fill out an exit ticket using the S-I-T structure. In order to do this, students reflect on what in the text they found to be surprising, interesting, and troubling.

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How the Supplemental Text Supports the Shared Core Text:

(1) On the GATES Checklist, I noted that the Shared Core Text included a rather limited amount of racial and cultural diversity. This supplemental text represents diversity in culture and ethnicity (as they do not adhere to the United States' 'mainstream culture') and is written by an author with an insider perspective. With this, the supplemental text explores an instance where an individual helped his community's environment in response to issues unique to that community.

(2) On the GATES Checklist, I noted that the Shared Core Text has a "Problem Solution" text structure while including several text features. This supplemental text uses a "Sequence" text structure while limiting the amount of text features it includes. This text structure helps to teach us how one person's actions were able to make an impact on their community's environment.

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Tier 2/Tier 3 Vocabulary Words:

Customs

Barren

Ravaged

Sacred

Prosper

I chose these words because they each work to add important detail to the story. The term 'customs' is important in understanding the culture of those whose story we are exploring. The terms 'barren' and 'ravaged' develop the reader's understanding of how mistreated this village's environment was. The terms 'sacred' and 'prosper' help us envision the immense positive effects that Sundar's work had.

Vocabulary Strategies:

Before: Concept Sort

Before the interactive read aloud, students will be given vocabulary terms found in the text and asked, in groups, to sort them into categories. These categories should be sorted in relation to a concept or topic that the students are familiar with and they should be able to explain why they sorted the terms the way they did. At this point, any misunderstandings of a term's meaning would be accepted.

During: Anchored Word Learning

Throughout our interactive read aloud with this text, I will pause my reading to conduct anchored word learning. With this, I will work with the terms listed above to decode and define them when we come across each in the text. This helps to ensure that students are clear on the meaning and use of each term.

After: Possible Sentences

After our interactive read aloud, students will work in partners to create possible sentences for each of the terms we discussed during our reading. Typically, this activity is done before reading and students check their work afterwards. Here, we will instead be creating the sentences after the reading. These sentences can be related to the text but should not be the same as the sentence found in the text.

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Tier 2/Tier 3 Vocabulary Words:

Bay

Landfill

Reduce

Recycle

Protest

I chose each of these words not only because of the understanding of each word being necessary to the understanding of the text, but also because each word helps to support the knowledge of how humans can impact our environment. The words 'bay' and 'landfill' each identify different parts of our environment that students should be aware of. The words 'reduce,' 'recycle,' and 'protest' all represent actions that we can take to help our environment.

Vocabulary Strategies:

Before: Concept Attainment Cards

Before reading the text, students will look at cards that show examples and non-examples of each vocabulary word listed above. As a whole class, students will be asked to compare and contrast the characteristics to identify the features of the concept/term and will then collaboratively create a definition and more examples for each term.

During: Four Column Think Sheet

While they are reading the text, students will fill out a four-column think sheet (the columns are Word, Clues, Inferred Meaning, and Sentence) as they come across vocabulary terms that they do not know. They will fill out the chart in its entirety as they come across these words in the reading. It is possible that students won't identify many unknown words, as the language demands of this text are low. However, this activity will let me know if this assumption is wrong so that I can review any words identified by students.

After: List-Group-Label

After completing their reading, students will gather (list) each of the words identified in the 'before' and 'during' strategies they completed prior. In small groups, students will then categorize these words into subgroups and explain their reasonings. Finally, students will label/title each group based on their reasoning.

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This summative assessment will directly link to the "DO" formative assessment that students begin prior. In the formative assessment, students work in small groups to perform an action that allows them to care for their community's environment. During this, they log their services and reflect on how it made them feel. This summative assessment expands on this activity.

Using the work they previously did, students are given the opportunity to share their work and findings with their class and community. They may do this in a multitude of ways. For example, students may create a 'how to' demonstration and teach their peers about introducing the service they completed into their everyday lives, form a sort of mock-protest and encourage others to join them (such as protesting against single use plastic after working to reduce plastic waste), or provide a presentation highlighting the positive effects that their efforts brought to their community. The direction that students choose will depend on their topic, strengths, and interests. Their ideas may expand beyond the ones listed above.

In the delivery of their work, students will organize a presentation hall (a live, active gallery walk where students are with their projects giving their multimodal presentations). This can be done within the classroom so that half the class 'walks the hall' while the others give their presentation, and then vice versa. However, (ideally, depending on availability) this can be expanded to larger audiences by having students of another class walk the presentation hall or by inviting community members to the presentation hall as a more organized event.

This summative assessment-consequential task is authentic to what scientists do: (a) scientists choose a problem that they want to solve and then research that topic, (b) scientists run experiments and/or participate in field work in relation to that topic, (c) scientists gather information and create conclusions, (d) scientists share their findings

Note: Some of these factors rely on the formative assessment administered and completed prior in relation to this summative assessment.