Creative Dance Unit on Water Cycle Grade: Fourth Written by: Chelsea Alley Unit Objective: By the end

of this three lesson unit, students will be able to demonstrate their understanding of the stages and cyclic nature of the water cycle through physical performance, verbal response, and planning, writing, and mapping. Through this, students will also demonstrate an understanding of their role and responsibility in relation to preserving the water cycle.
Utah Core - Science Standard 1: Students will understand that water changes state as it moves through the water cycle. Objective 2: Describe the water cycle. b. Describe the processes of evaporation, condensation, and precipitation as they relate to the water cycle. d. Construct a model or diagram to show how water continuously moves through the water cycle over time. e. Describe how the water cycle relates to the water supply in your community. Utah Core Dance Standard 2: The student will identify and demonstrate movement elements in performing dance. Objective 2: Expand dance vocabulary with movement experiences in space. d. Explore spatial concepts by drawing patterns. Standard 3: The student will improvise, create, perform, and respond to movement solutions in the art form of dance. Objective 1: Explore the process of making a dance. c. Explore with a partner the spatial relationship of meeting, parting, and passing. Standard 4: The student will understand and demonstrate dance in relation to its historical and cultural origins. Objective 3: Make connections between dance and other disciplines. c. Create a dance project from the sciences.

Materials Needed: Hand Drum; CD player; CD with creative dance music, water cycle chart, butcher paper and markers Vocabulary Words: evaporation, condensation, precipitation, transpiration, accumulation, spatial relationship, meeting, parting, passing, spatial pathways, levels Assumptions: It will be assumed that as fourth graders, students will have a few years of previous exposure to creative dance through an elementary program and will be at a normal development level for their age. Assessment: Throughout the unit, informal assessment will be constantly forming the direction of the class. At the end of the unit, students will be assessed in their ability to identify and perform stages of the water cycle as well as reflect on our role as individuals.

Creative Dance Lesson Plan on the Water Cycle Grade: 4th Length: 45 minutes Written by: Chelsea Alley

Student Learning Outcome: By the end of this 45-minute class, students will be able to identify and demonstrate their understanding of the stages of the water cycle by physical performance with levels and shapes. Behavioral Expectations/Warmup: (5 minutes) Four Corners Warmup 1st: Space; 2nd:Concentrate; 3rd: Respect; 4th: Have fun! Experience/Identify: (5 minutes) The earth has a limited amount of water. That water keeps going around and around and around and around and you get the idea, in what we call the "Water Cycle. Lets explore each stage of the Water Cycle through movement. Spread out and find your own space in the room. For today, you are each going to be a water particle, lets see how you move through the cycle! Explore/Investigate: (20 minutes) When you hear the music, begin moving on a low level in a smooth, sustained way. Right now, this movement is representing a lake Im looking across this room and I see all your bodies making up one body that could be a lake. When you hear the drum beat, begin moving closer to the centerline of the room. Maintain that smooth, sustained movement! You have now moved into a river! I am at the head of the river; follow me as I show you the pathway our river will take through the room. We are still moving on a low level and rivers move faster than lakes. Try some rolling and sliding as well. Freeze! The sun has just come out. This time when you hear the drum, spread out and begin to slowly rise. Slowly, slowly, you are moving to a higher and higher level. Freeze when you get to your highest level possible. Does anyone know what we as water particles have just done? Evaporated! You have become a water vapor that rose until it was hanging in the air. Now, we have all these water particles in the high level throughout this room. When you hear the drum, begin to move closer together. This is different than falling into a line; this is everyone moving into the center point. You are no longer flowing water on the ground, how would a small water particle move in the air? Try spinning and twirling, maybe explore some air moments. How can you make it different than water flowing in a low level? The air is getting colder. If you get close to someone, join forces and begin moving together. Continue doing so until you are one group moving in the center of the room. Freeze! What process did you water particles just go through? Condensation! Rather than a water vapor, you are now a liquid again in the form of a cloud. This cloud is looking pretty heavy to me. So heavy, in fact, that all you water particles can no longer stay in the air! When you hear the drum, begin to sink to a low level softly and lightly. Settle into a low shape. Class, what has just happened? Precipitation! The liquid in the cloud fell to the earth. There are different ways that this can happen. We just fell slowly and lightly. What kind of precipitation could this be?

[Snow] Rewind! Everyone come back to the cloud shape. Now, lets try falling with a speed and direction that would represent rain or sleet. Rewind! What about hail? Fall to the ground and bounce when you get there. [Try a few times, teacher calling out snow, rain, or hail for each fall]. Freeze in a low level. Where in the water cycle are we right now? Back on the earth, the water particles gather back together, either underground, or in lakes or rivers. What is this process called? Accumulation! Once this happens, the cycle is ready to start all over again. Create/Perform: (10 minutes) Split into groups of four. You will create a dance that has a beginning middle and end. Choose anywhere to start in the water cycle. Begin with a shape that is interesting and represents the stage you are in, either connected with the group, with a partner, or on your own. Remember, we arent acting our or pantomiming, we are using interesting, creative movement. Move your dance through the high, middle, and low levels as you follow the water cycle and end in an interesting shape. Allow groups to perform, ask viewers to identify which stage the dancers begin and end and look for interesting movement throughout. Connect/Analyze: (5 minutes) What is your favorite level of the water cycle? Is that because you liked to dance that way or because you like it that way outside? What other cycles do we see in nature? Is there a stage you can identify happening right now outside?

Creative Dance Lesson Plan on the Water Cycle Part II Grade: 4th Length: 45 minutes Written by: Chelsea Alley

Student Learning Outcome: By the end of this 45-minute lesson, students will be able to demonstrate critical thinking and organizational methods through preparing a map for movement and translating it to physical performance. Students will also be able to demonstrate understanding of spatial relationships and the cyclic patterns in nature through physical and verbal response. Exploration/Investigation: Review the water cycle. Go through again, discussing spatial relationships of water particles. When in the cycle do they meet together? When do they part? When would they pass each other? Explore these relationships at each stage in groups of eight.

Create/Perform: In groups of eight, map out floor and space pathways for their own water cycle. Where and how in the room will they travel? Think about pathways, directions, levels, and spatial relationships. Map out what each person will do and when in a different color on the paper. Because they are individual water particles, not everyone will have to be together the whole time. Also consider where in the cycle each person wants to start and when they will meet, pass, and part other dancers. Use this map to create the dance and perform for peers. Show map first and have viewers watch to identify how the movement follows the cycle map. Connect/Analyze: (5 minutes) What did you learn through planning these maps first, then following them? What was hard about it? What did you like about it?

Creative Dance Lesson Plan on the Water Cycle Part III Grade: 4th Length: 45 minutes Written by: Chelsea Alley Student Learning Outcome: By the end of this 45 minute lesson plan, students will be able to demonstrate their understanding of the fragility of the water cycle and awareness of human alterations through organization and physical performance. Students will also demonstrate creative problem solving through alterations of their dances. Exploration/Investigation: Discuss human activities that alter the water cycle explore through movement agriculture, industry, dams, deforestation, urbanization Discuss community specific alterations. Sculpture Garden one partner forms the other into a shape that would represent altering the water cycle, all the first partners then move through the space, altering their flow around, through, under the other shaped dancers. Switch roles. Create/Perform: Go back to the maps from Part II. Combine two groups together. Have one group decide how to add obstacles that would alter the other groups movement or cycle plan and vice versa. The original group must figure out a way to alter their cycle around the added group. Each group then performs twice, once for each group. Connect/Analyze: What can we do to minimize altering the water cycle in our communities? Why is it important to allow the water cycle to continue as it normally does? What are little things we can each do?