Earth

1
Earths Water Cycle
Unit Plan Mary Golden
Big Ideas
2
Differentiating Instruction

• Use a problem-based learning scenario to
  reinforce the concept that fresh water is a
  limited resource and must be conserved.
• Goal Your task is to convince people that water
  conservation is important.
• Role You are an employee of the Department of
  Water Resources.
• Audience The citizens of California
• Situation Your manager has asked you and your
  co-worker to work on an advertising campaign to
  inform citizens of the facts and to persuade them
  to conserve water.
• Product You will create a poster that grabs
  peoples attention, opens their eyes to the
  facts, and provides them with water conservation
  ideas.
• Criteria for success Your work will be
  evaluated according to a rubric and you will make
  a presentation explaining your reasons for
  including each item on the poster.
• This strategy supports differentiation by
• Encouraging cooperative learning
• Providing choice in terms of what to include on
  the poster
• Setting up a different perspective from which to
  view the topic
• Providing a novel approach to the topic

3
National Board Core Proposition 2 Teachers
Know the Subjects They Teach and How to Teach
Those Subjects to Students
With this unit I tried to

• organize the unit to encourage students to think
  about the Earth as a web of interconnected
  systems.
• challenge students to consider systems as more
  than the sum of the parts by focusing on the
  water cycle.
• build a foundation of facts while posing thought
  provoking questions that teach students to think
  about the global context in which they live.
• strive to provide multiple paths to knowledge by
  using different instructional strategies and
  tasks that stimulate the interest of all
  students.