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What Can We Do?

Learning Experience 8

Big Idea

We can find a way to use and manage resources so that current and future generations of people, plants and animals can thrive over time.

Summary

All the “stuff” that we use everyday starts somewhere. Even though many of our objects are made by people, discover how the materials sourced for our everyday objects all come from nature originally.

Engage

As they watch the videos, ask students to think about these questions:

  • How can we keep using our natural resources forever?
  • Is everything recyclable?

Ask them to take notes and follow up with time to share ideas:

Explore and Explain

Socratic Seminar Discussion topic:

  • How can we keep using our natural resources forever? Is everything recyclable?

Choose your Content Resources for the Socratic Seminar from the following:

Explain that before engaging in the Socratic Seminar about sustainability, students will first gather specific evidence that supports their individual topic statements. They may use any notes from the science unit or from the texts, notes and discussion from the previous science period and must have two pieces of evidence to support their claim.

  • The resources are divided between several groups with each student being responsible for part of the reading/viewing the source material.
  • Students go to “expert” groups to discuss the portion of the source they read/viewed and complete a portion of a graphic organizer for claims/evidence/elaboration.
  • Students return to home groups and present their conclusions and responses.
  • While each student is presenting to the home group, those students fill out their own graphic organizers (take notes) for the presenters section.
  • Concluding instructions for Step 1: Go over expectations using Socratic Seminar Speaking and Listening Tracker and Rubric – and ask students to bring to the next class a topic statement stating their opinion about the guiding question with two pieces of evidence to support their claim.

Bringing it All Together

Throughout this Unit, we have explored, discovered and questioned. Let’s ponder the Unit’s Essential question:

  • What can we do to contribute to a healthy and just Philadelphia for all Philadelphians?

By reviewing what we learned about STUFF, what it is made from, where it goes when we no longer need or want it, and how we envision a community environment that is litter free and where our waterways, which provide drinking water, are fishable, swimmable, safe, and accessible for all to enjoy, now and into the future.

Ask your students to take the pledge below and decide on an action they would like to take. Encourage them to develop their own original and authentic ideas: “I would like to play my part in making my community a more healthy, sustainable place to live, go to school and play by doing the following action… “

Example:

  • Encourage every student in my class to use only reusable plastic water bottles for drinking water.

Teacher Support

Essential Question:

What can students do to contribute to a healthy and just Philadelphia for all Philadelphians?

Guiding Question:

What can we do to protect the water we use both upstream and downstream?

Students will be able to:

  • identify actionable ways that they can contribute to a healthier Philadelphia.

Grab bag of everyday objects (3-4 each of those made from nature and made by people).

Materials for Socractic Seminar: resources, graphic organizer for note taking

Impact (verb)
have a strong effect or influence on someone or something

Harvest (noun)
the process or period of gathering crops

Pesticide (noun)
a substance used for destroying organisms harmful to cultivated plants or to animals

Insecticide (noun)
a substance used for killing insects

Mill (verb)
grind or crush (something) in a mill

Carcinogen (noun)
a substance capable of causing cancer in living tissue

Toxic (adjective)
poisonous

Waste (noun)
material that is not wanted; the unusable remains or byproducts of something

Condition (noun)
the state of something with regard to its appearance, quality, or working order

Wage (noun)
a fixed regular payment, typically paid on a daily or weekly basis, made by an employer to an employee

Income (noun)
money received, especially on a regular basis, for work or through investments

Domestic (adjective)
existing or occurring inside a particular country; not foreign or international

Global (adjective)
relating to the whole world; worldwide

Garment (noun)
an item of clothing

Production (noun)
the action of making or manufacturing from components or raw materials

Consume (verb)
use up (a resource)

Polluter (noun)
a person or thing responsible for contaminating the environment with harmful or poisonous substances

  • Reflect orally and in writing how the class was able to generate and compare multiple possible solutions to a problem based on how well each is likely to meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.
  • Use their own choices as exemplars that demonstrate awareness that all human choices contribute to sustainable or unsustainable consequences.

PA STEELS Standards

Environmental Literacy and Sustainability

3.4.3-5.E Environmental Literacy Skills: Construct an argument to support whether action is needed on a selected environmental issue and propose possible solutions.

Related Standards

NGSS. 3-5-ETS1-2 Engineering Design – Generate and compare multiple possible solutions to a problem based on how well each is likely to meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.

EFS B10 Responsible Local & Global Citizenship – Use their own choices as exemplars that demonstrate awareness that all human choices contribute to sustainable or unsustainable consequences.

Student Materials

Graphic Organizer

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