Part 2: Revised Lesson Plan

Lesson Title: What is Recycling?

Standard: 3.E.4B.4 Define problems caused by a natural event or human activity and design devices or
solutions to reduce the impact on the environment.

Lesson Objective: Students will demonstrate an understanding that pollution can harm our air, land, and
water. Students will be able to determine solutions for encouraging recycling in their community.

Materials and Preparation:

- Gallery walk Google Slides

- Trash to spread around the room
- Explicit Instruction Google Slides
- Brainstorming Google Doc
- iPads
- Chromebooks
- Poster supplies

Key terms

Attachments

Introduction- The teacher will spread trash around the classroom. When students enter the classroom,
the teacher will pretend not to notice the trash and act confused when the students complain about the
mess. Students will then be broken into groups and given iPads. They will walk around the room and
scan the QR codes to do a “gallery walk.” The pictures on this gallery walk will deal with land, water, and
air pollution. Students will discuss these pictures with their group and talk about what they see and
what they wonder. The teacher then will show students some pictures of water, land, and air pollution
on a Google Slides Presentation. The teacher will prompt students on what they noticed about each
picture. The teacher will then have students turn and talk to their neighbors about ways we can prevent
pollution.

Explicit Instruction/Teaching modeling:

-The teacher will have a Google Slides Presentation that goes through the ways that we can cut down
pollution. Students will work with the interactive white board to help recycle materials on pictures to
protect our environment.

- Students then will break into groups and use the brainstorming sheet from Google Docs to determine
ways they can recycle at home and school.

- Explain that objects can go into three categories when you need to get rid of them: trash compost,
objects that can be broken down and used in the soil, and recycling, which is generally glass, plastic, and
paper that can be broken down into new items.
Guided Practice:

- Introduce the What is Recyclable? Google Doc to students.

- Go over the directions and do an example with students with prompting
- Have students work with their neighbor to finish the rest of the Google Doc

Independent Working Time:

-Discuss with students the ways we can help other people become aware of recycling and how to
recycle appropriately.

- Give the students the options of creating a poster (digitally or paper), creating an educational video, or
an electronic brochure to help create awareness for recycling

-Speak with students about digital citizenship. They will be allowed to use internet approved sites to do
research

- Have students work with assigned groups to create their presentation

- When students are done with their presentations, they will share their presentation with their family,
school, and community.

Differentiation: Students may film or write in their native language to help bring awareness to their
specific communities.

Enrichment: Students may make more than one presentation using different tools to inform
their communities.

Support: The teacher will act as a mentor to groups. Students will be able to use technology to
research and create their content.

Assessment:

- Students will be informally assessed by observations.

- Students will be informally assessed through guided practice activity
- Students will be formally assessed by the independent practice group activity. See assessment
plan for rubric

Review and closing:

- Students will share their presenations with the rest of the class.
Before and After Reflection:

The lesson I choose was a second-grade lesson on recycling. This lesson was found on
education.com. I converted it to meet third grade standards. The original lesson in my opinion was very
boring and did give students enough opportunities to explore the content to meet the objectives. I
believe students should be given opportunities to learn through inquiry in order to make more
meaningful connections. Technology is a great tool that can help peak students’ interest in lesson and
engage them in the new content.

To begin, I wanted to drastically change the introduction. The introduction is a key component
to engaging students in the content you are going to be teaching. The original lesson plan just simply
had the teacher asking students what they already know about recycling. This does not promote inquire
for these students and does not adhere to the leaning needs of visual learners. I wanted to guide
students to the topic of or lesson by letting them explore examples of pollution. The spreading the trash
around the room will help students make real world connections and also it is a silly activity that will
grab their attention from the beginning. By adding a gallery walk with QR codes and iPads, students will
be able to look at real life examples of pollution in their communities. They will observe the effects it is
having on the environments and begin making a meaningful connection to the lesson. I choose to use
QR codes instead of just putting pictures around the room because it creates a sense of mystery for the
students. They do not know what picture is going to pop up and it also creates a clearer visual image for
students that they can zoom in on.

The next part of the lesson is the Explicit Instruction. Once again, the original lesson was
adhering to only auditory learners and was not creating any opportunities for visual or kinesthetic
learners. By adding an interactive Google Slides presentation, I can add videos, interactive activities,
pictures, and still provide meaningful verbal content.

Another aspect of the original lesson plan that I decided to change was the guided practice
section. The original lesson had a worksheet where it just stated what was recyclable and what was not.
Then students colored the items and added stickers. I did not feel this made a very meaningful
connection to recycling. Students were only presented with a few options and given no opportunity to
discuss and explain their thinking to their neighbors. I changed this part to an interactive Google Doc.
Students will download the document to their devices and will sort and explain their reasoning. This will
make a more meaningful connection, because students will have more options of choices to choose
from and they will also get the opportunities to explain their reasoning.

For independent practice I wanted to give students more options to choose their learning
methods. Before they only had the option of creating a poster. A poster is a great option, but with
technology there are more ways for students to present their information. An educational video or a
brochure is something that can be sent out to their communities and families. I am passionate about not
just being a teacher that lectures and tells the students the information I want them to learn. I want
them to question, explore, and create to learn content. The technology added to this lesson will allow
students to connect to the material in a more meaningful way. The target skills of safe internet searches
will be used in this project to help students research information.