Curriculum planning chart Generative Topic (Blythe et al, 1998): Trees as a Natural Resource Name: Heather Brubach

Concept ("The student will understand")

Science S4.B.3.2.1: Describe what happens to a living thing when its habitat is changed. S4.B.3.2.2: Describe and predict how changes in the environment (e.g., fire, pollution, flood, building dams) can affect systems. BIO.B.4.2.4: Describe how ecosystems change in response to natural and human disturbances (e.g., climate changes, introduction of nonnative species, pollution, fires). Arts and Humanities 9.1.5.E: Know and demonstrate how arts can communicate experiences, stories or emotions through the production of works in the arts. Literacy CC.1.2: Reading Informational Text: Students read, understand, and respond to informational text with emphasis on comprehension, making connections among ideas and between texts with focus on textural evidence.

Subject: 3rd Grade Science

Standard

Assessment: (How will you have evidence that they know it?)
Students will create a tree ring artwork for their life (it will show in rings how old they are and in what years they think they did the most growing by the width of the ring) Students will create a time-line to share a hypothesis of what happened in this trees life time by using tree rings as evidence.

Facts ("The students will know")

Skills ("The students will be able to")

Hypothesize the yearly conditions of a trees habitat with supporting evidence from tree rings. Apply their knowledge of how trees show their growth in rings to their own lives Discuss possible variables that affect tree growth including (rainfall/drought, pollution, amount of sunlight/shade, damage to roots/branches, etc.)

Problems to pose ("Guiding questions" or "unit questions")

How are natural things in our world connected or related to each other? How are our natural resources threatened? How have humans impacted the natural world? How can we use observations to learn about the world around us?

Activities:

We can learn about the world around us by making careful observations and keeping a record of them. Informational texts can help us to organize information and learn about the world around us.

Trees growth can be measured by counting and observing the ring patterns in the wood trunk. Wide tree rings show high growth rate, thin tree rings show low growth rate. You can tell the age of a tree by counting the total number of rings. To observe tree rings you either need to cut down the tree or take a core sample from it's trunk.

Observe tree round samples in table groups to count the rings and analyze the growth pattern of that particular tree. Read about tree rings in non-fiction texts and a poem about tree rings. Create their own tree ring artwork to represent the growth patterns in their own life.

We can learn about the world around us by making careful observations and keeping a record of them. Informational texts can help us to organize information and learn about the world around us.

S4.B.3.2.1: Describe what happens to a living thing when its habitat is changed. S4.B.3.2.2: Describe and predict how changes in the environment (e.g., fire, pollution, flood, building dams) can affect systems. BIO.B.4.2.4: Describe how ecosystems change in response to natural and human disturbances (e.g., climate changes, introduction of nonnative species, pollution, fires).

Performance assessment to watch and see if they are correctly using tools such as tape measures and clinometers. (The recorded measurements can be checked for reasonable accuracy) Students will write a constructed response to why two trees of the same height might not be the same age (including the concepts of different growth rates for different types of trees and also different trees' responses to habitat conditions) Students will create a flip book of a forest going through the stages of succession in the correct order after a disturbance of their choice. A rubric will be used to assess the final project.

A clinometer is a tool to meaure the height of things that may be hard to measure otherwise. A tape measure is a tool to more easily measure things that are round or irregularly shaped. Different types of trees grow at different rates. The environmental conditions in a trees habitat can affect it's growth rate.

Acurrately use a tape measure to determine the diameter of a tree trunk Accurately use a clinometer to measure the height of a tree and the height of it's first branch. Justify why you can't necessarily tell the age of a tree by it's height. Make conclusions about the school yard tree population from data collected.

How are natural things in our world connected or related to each other? How can we use observations to learn about the world around us?

Reading non-fictions text about tree growth. Comparing growth rates of different types of trees using a chart or graph. Reading two scenarios of two trees that are measured at the same height. Discussion with table groups about what in the scenario helps them understand how the trees may have grown differently than one another.

Throughout history humans have both harmed and helped the environment Natural resources benefit their environments' ecosystem as well as human lives and communities

BIO.B.4.2.4: Describe how ecosystems change in response to natural and human disturbances (e.g., climate changes, introduction of nonnative species, pollution, fires).

Trees are often a part of a larger ecosystem called a forest. There are 3 types of forests (coniferous, deciduous, and rainforests) The forests have 3 main layers (floor, understory and canopy) Forest succession is the gradual replacement of one plant community by another over time (caused by human or natural disturbance, ex: clear cutting, fire, etc.)

Sequence the stages of succession for a forest (Establishment stage to Thinning stage to transition stage to List causes of disturbance for forests (road construction, development, timber cutting, natural events such as storms, fires, etc., Agriculture clearing,)

How are natural things in our world connected or related to each other? How are natural resources threatened? How have humans impacted the natural world?

Read the book How the Forest Grew noting the stages and characteristics of forest succession. Create drawings that illustrate the stages of succession that will be sequenced together to create a flip book through time.