3rd Grade – 5th Grade
Lesson Plans
Save the World
Description: This lesson plan allows students to create ways in which they can help to save the planet. Students will start off by acknowledging certain environmental problems that are facing our community (ie. effects of climate change on Cayuga Lake Watershed, HABs exc.) They will then watch a video and create environmental superheroes that can combat the effects that climate change has on our watershed! In this lesson, each student should create themselves as a superhero, and outline the steps that they can take as an individual to better our community. Teachers should encourage students to come up with their own ways of being environmental superheros and emphasize that everyone has a place in saving the world! After the lesson is complete, teachers can introduce young environmental advocates in the community (high schoolers could come in and talk about their experiences) and around the world to help motivate the students to continue to advocate for environmental change.
Root Exploration
Description: This lesson plan starts off with a reading called “What do Roots Do?” This book allows kids to explore the ways in which roots of plants and trees work, and gives students an introduction to the power in which roots hold. After reading a book about roots, students will have the opportunity to connect with the environment hands on. The students will go either into a garden at the school or just a small space outside where they will begin digging up weeds, trying to keep their roots intact. The students will then go back inside to observe the roots of these weeds and create poems about how the roots work and how they provide nutrients for the plant. Students will also be expected to create a poem about another aspect of the environment that is important for the ecosystem to flourish (ie. trees, flowers, etc.) This lesson will allow for students to understand the processes of nature and how they are important to life on Earth. This lesson can also be used to emphasize what climate change can do to roots and what life may resemble without roots. It is critical for teachers to connect the way plants need roots to the things and processes that humans need to survive.
Picture Books for Change
Description: This lesson plan allows for students to create a picture book to teach others about concepts of the environment. Students will work in small groups to create picture books that they can present to the younger kids about subjects like, the way water moves, How does climate change work? How can you be an environmental steward? Exc. This lesson plan allows for students who are older to help teach and inspire younger kids to create change, while also learning about the environment themselves through research and collaboration with their peers. During this lesson, teachers should emphasize the influence that students have on younger peers and the idea that we must leave this planet/ space we occupy better for those who are younger than us. This idea can then be connected back to watershed stewardship, and how students should protect the planet and watershed not only for the needs of themselves, but also for the needs of future generations.
Books
Creek Critters by Jennifer Keats Curtis
Description: Do you like scavenger hunts? How do you tell if creek water is clean and healthy? Join Lucas and his sister as they act like scientists looking for certain kinds of stream bugs (aquatic macroinvertebrates) that need clean, unpolluted water to survive. What will they find as they turn over rocks, pick up leaves and sort through the mud? Read along to find out if their creek gets a passing grade.
My Great Grandmother's Gourd by Cristina Kessler
Description: Set in Sudan and tells the story of modern technology replacing traditional ways, and ultimately the wisdom of combining the old and the new. It’s based on a true event, and shares the universal theme of “Don’t mess with my grandmother”, and family loyalty. A delightful story about keeping old traditions while accepting those that are new. The people of a Sudanese village are excited about a shiny new water pump. Never again will they have to use old methods for getting water-or so they think. Fatima’s grandmother, however, remembers how people relied on storing water in the baobab trees in the past, and she is determined to prepare her tree before the rains come, despite the ridicule of her neighbors. Then, one day, the pump breaks and the villagers appreciate the old woman’s caution.
The Old Woman and The Wave By Shelley Jackson
Description: How does a person find courage to face her biggest fear? Jackson (Willy’s Silly Grandma) explores this existential question with humor and sympathy, using her sophisticated collage art to create drama through a pastiche of characters and landscapes. The simple plot centers on an old woman whose house sits precariously under an enormous wave. The woman’s crankiness hides her all-consuming fear of the wave and the life-threatening disaster she believes will happen at any second. Branding the wave “wasteful”, “careless” and “clumsy”, she pretends to ignore it until her more adventurous dog plunges into the metaphoric source of life. This is a “once upon a time” story in the true sense, in which fear of the unknown is never outgrown, but is, rather, faced and overcome.
We are Water Protectors By Carole Lindstrom
Description: Inspired by the many Indigenous-led movements across North America, We Are Water Protectors issues an urgent rallying cry to safeguard the Earth’s water from harm and corruption—a bold and lyrical picture book written by Carole Lindstrom and vibrantly illustrated by Michaela Goade.
Water Can Be... By Laura Purdie Salas
Description: Maybe you thought water was just for drinking and baths. But it does so much more! It gives us sprinklers to run through and ice cubes to cool our drinks and comfort owies. It shifts from water to fog to snow and ice. It gives life but also creates monstrous storms. Find out about the many roles water plays in this brief, poetic exploration of water throughout the year.
Does Earth Feel? By Marc Majewski
Description: Majewski’s debut proves quietly engaging, with textural acrylic artwork and simple, emotion-centered questions to help children recontextualize how they view Earth. Each left-hand page offers a single question against a natural-colored background, anthropomorphizing the planet with a spare refrain: “Does Earth feel…?” The corresponding right-hand page shows a colorful visual representation of each question, portraying humans as minuscule and emphasizing natural landscapes: a depiction of a gray, polluted city accompanies “Does Earth feel sick?” and a scene of a thriving green forest attends “Does Earth feel alive?” The final question breaks the fourth wall to address the reader directly (“And you, what do you want Earth to feel?”), ending this meditative picture book on a thought-provoking note.
The 1619 Project: Born on the Water
Description: A young student receives a family tree assignment in school, but she can only trace back three generations. Grandma gathers the whole family, and the student learns that 400 years ago, in 1619, their ancestors were stolen and brought to America by white slave traders. But before that, they had a home, a land, a language. She learns how the people said to be born on the water survived.