Grade Level: Third Grade Lesson Developer: Samantha J. Stojanoff Lesson Plan Title: Lets Explore the Sonoran Desert Concept/Topic to Teach: Look at crawlers, wildlife, and vegetation that live in the Sonoran Desert Standards Addressed: -Concept 2: Scientific Testing (investigating and modeling), PO3. Conduct simple investigations in life, physical, and Earth and Space sciences. -Concept 5: Publishing, PO1. Prepare writing in a format appropriate to audience and purpose. General Goal(s): Students should have a good understanding of the information they are looking through in each category. Specific Objectives: Students will be able to identify their crawler (arachnids and insects), wildlife (animals, birds, lizards, snakes), and vegetation (cacti and vegetation). Students will be able to write about each topic. Required Materials: Computer and Internet Anticipatory Set (lead in): Have students draw a picture of what they believe lives in the Sonoran Desert and then have them discuss it. When they are finished, have them log into the Sonoran Desert Explorers website and watch a few on the introduction videos in each category. Step-by-Step Procedures: 1) Have students visit the site and look through all of the content pages of the website. 2) Have the students choose one crawler, one type of wildlife, and one type vegetation to further investigate. 3) Once they have fully investigated their topics, have them create a scrapbook activity about each of their topics. When they finish, have them present the activity to the class. 4) After they have completed their presentations, have the students take the assessment on each of their topics. The assessment is located at the bottom of the topic’s content page. Plan for Independent Practice: The students will be creating a scrapbook. After looking through the information and feeling comfortable with it, they can draw or find pictures online of each of their topics. They then will write three to five sentences about each picture and then create it into a book format. When they are finished, they will be presenting their scrapbooks to the class. They also will be taking an assessment when they are finished with each of their activities. Closure: After the students have finished, they will be presenting their scrapbooks in class. After all of the students have presented, the whole class will come together and have a class discussion on everything they have learned. Assessment Based on Objectives: The students will be taking a short quiz on the information they have learned. Adaptations: -Students can work in pairs to find the information. -Students can just find pictures and instead of writing sentences they can just present to the class and tell their story Extensions: -Students can complete more than one type of wildlife in each topic. -They can find more pictures and create more pages to their scrapbook and add more sentences. Possible Connections to Other Subjects: This activity can be related to science, reading, writing, and art. |