POLLUTION MATTERS

Grade 3: Pollution Matters

Unit Description

Students will use theatre, music, movement, and the visual arts to observe, obtain, evaluate and communicate the effects of pollution on the environment. This unit uses The Lorax by Dr. Seuss to bring to life the causes and effects of various types of pollution on the environment and their ecosystems. Students will also strengthen their persuasive and descriptive writing skills throughout the projects in this “Pollution Matters” unit.

Unit Essential Question

How can we obtain, evaluate and communicate the effects of pollution on the environment?

Real World Context

We study the effects of pollution on the environment because it is in the world around us and affects our lives on a daily basis. Understanding the impact of pollution on our environment will help us make better decisions about our everyday choices as producers and consumers.

Cross-Cutting Interdisciplinary Concepts

Cause/Effect
Compare/Contrast

Projects

Project 1: Ego vs Eco
In this project, students will learn about air, water and land pollutants from around the world. Students will express how they feel emotionally about pollution through movement. They will respond to images addressing pollution using dance. The culminating activity for students is creating an environmental awareness brochure that synthesizes all of their knowledge around pollution.

Project 2: Good Garbage
In this project, students will examine the effects of pollution on the ecosystem in a musical way! This project includes students creating new lyrics to a song about pollution. Students step into role as lyricists and use music to help humans understand the causes and effects of pollution around them.

Project 3: The Lorax
In this project, students will listen to the story The Lorax by Dr. Seuss. Students will discuss the art elements they see in the text. They will sketch and use oil pastels to recreate their own scene analysis of the illustrations before and after the Onceler. Students will also relate to the changes of mood throughout the story. Students will then create a persuasive writing piece comparing and contrasting the Lorax’s habitat.

Project Essential Questions

PROJECT 1:

  • How does pollution affect people from different cultures in different ways?

PROJECT 2:

  • How can I use music to evaluate and communicate information about the effects of pollution on people and the environment?

PROJECT 3:

  • How can art be used to compare and contrast the land of the Lorax before and after the Onceler? How do you analyze the mood in a piece of artwork using key vocabulary?

Standards

Curriculum Standards
S3L2. Obtain, evaluate and communicate information about the effects of pollution (air, land, and water) and humans on the environment.
ELAGSE3W1: Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons.

  1. Introduce the topic or book they are writing about, state an opinion, and create an organizational structure that lists reasons. b. Provide reasons that support the opinion.
  2. Use linking words and phrases (e.g., because, therefore, since, for example) to connect opinion and reasons.
  3. Provide a concluding statement or section

ELAGSE3RI3: Describe the relationship between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text, using language that pertains to time, sequence, and cause/effect.

ELAGSE3RI6: Distinguish their own point of view from that of the author of a text

ELAGSE3RL5: Refer to parts of stories, dramas, and poems when writing or speaking about a text using terms such as chapter, scene, and stanza; describe how each successive part builds on earlier sections.

Arts Standards

VA3AR.1: Discuss his or her artwork and the artwork of others.

VASAR.2: Uses a variety of approaches to understand and critique works of art.

D3CR.1: Demonstrates an understanding of creative and choreographic principles. processes and structures.

  1. Responds through movement to a variety of stimuli (eg. Literature, visual art, props)

D3CR.2: Demonstrates an understanding of dance as a way to communicate meaning.

  1. Uses a combination of improvisations and choreographic tools to create movement based on one’s own ideas, feelings, concepts and kinetics awareness

M3GM.1: Singing, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.

M3GM.5: Composing and arranging music within specified guidelines.

  1. Create rhythmic motives and enhance literature.
  2. Compose simple melodic patterns.
  3. Arrange rhythmic patterns creating simple forms and instrumentation.

TAES3.2: Developing scripts through improvisation and other theatrical methods

  1. Uses the playwriting process: pre-write/pre-play; prepare to write/plan dramatization; write; dramatize; reflect and edit; re-write/play; publish/perform
  2. Collaborates to generate story ideas
  3. Describes the elements of script writing; plot, setting, point of view, sequence of events, and cause and effect

TAES3.4: Designing and executing artistic and technical elements of theatre

  1. Uses technical theatre elements to design costumes, props, sets, sound and lighting
  2. Incorporates technical theatre elements such as costumes, props, sets, sound, lighting, into dramatizations

VA3PR.1 Creates artworks based on personal experience and selected themes.

  1. Creates artworks to express individual ideas, thoughts, and feelings from memory, imagination, and observation.
  2. Creates artworks emphasizing one or more elements of art (e.g., color, line, shape,form, texture).
  3. Creates art emphasizing one or more principles of design (balance, proportion, rhythm, emphasis, unity, contrast).
  4. Combines materials in new and inventive ways to make a finished work of art.

VA3PR.2 Understands and applies media, techniques, and processes of two-dimensional art processes (drawing, painting, printmaking, mixed-media) using tools and materials in a safe and appropriate manner to develop skills.

  1. Creates drawings with a variety of media (e.g., pencils, crayons, pastel).
  2. Draws lines with varied weights and in varied ways.
  3. Uses directional lines (vertical, horizontal, diagonal).
  4. Creates landscape with foreground, middle ground, background.
  5. Achieves distance through diminishing sizes and placement of objects higher on the page

VA3AR.1 Discusses his or her artwork and the artwork of others.

  1. Describes how size, colors, lines, shapes, and textures are organized in artwork to create a focus or center of interest (emphasis).
  2. Demonstrates a respect for art forms and art objects.
  3. Uses art terminology with emphasis on the elements of art: line, shape, form, color, space, texture.
  4. Uses art terminology with emphasis on the principles of design. (e.g., balance, proportion, rhythm, emphasis, unity, contrast).
  5. Recognizes that lines can be used to suggest movement, feelings, sounds, and ideas.
  6. Points to descriptive, directional, and expressive lines in artworks.
  7. Explains how texture (implied and actual) is used in two-dimensional shapes and three-dimensional forms.
  8. Identifies intermediate and complementary colors, tints, and shades of colors.
  9. Recognizes value as the lightness and darkness of a color.
  10. Distinguishes between 2-D shapes and 3-D forms.
  11. Recognizes the division of picture plane into foreground, middle ground, and background.
  12. Describes how negative and positive space is related.
  13. Recognizes and compares symmetrical and asymmetrical balance in artworks.

Materials to be Purchased for this Unit

  • Science Weekly Newspapers
  • Post It brand chart paper
  • Clear Garbage bags
  • Black Ultra Fine Sharpies
  • Soft Chalk Pastels
  • Patel Card Paper
  • Light Filters or Color Transparencies
  • Flash Light
  • Spray Fixatives

Character Education

Components

Students can also create and share brochures with other students, school visitors, and/or grade levels to encourage environmental awareness. Students will collaborate with peers to create a variety of projects that educate others on the awareness of pollution and what they can do to limit the amount of garbage and pollution in the ecosystems around the world.

Character Attributes Addressed During Unit

  • Empathy
  • Learning with others
  • Environmental awareness
  • Respect

Summative Assessments

  • Pre/ Post Test

Partnering With Fine Arts Teachers

Music Teacher:

  • Can provide assistance to students with creating song documenting awareness of pollution
  • Help students select music to use with song lyric creation
  • Review Quaver program to assist students with composing music

Visual Arts/Drama Teacher:

  • Assist students with the process of text rendering when creating visual representations of art using the garbage collected
  • Discuss with students the elements of art (tone, mood, warm/cool colors) when analyzing a piece of art

Physical Education Teacher:

  • Teach students empathy by sharing a variety of movements that express a variety of emotions

Appendix (See Additional Resources)

  • Pre/ Post Test

Credits

Jill McNally, Alisa Moore, Julie Palmieri, Edited by Jessica Espinoza, Edited by Dr. Carla Cohen, Edited by Jessica Rosa

Ego vs. Eco

Description

In this project, students will learn about air, water and land pollutants from around the world. Students will express how they feel emotionally about pollution through movement. They will respond to images addressing pollution using dance. The culminating activity for students is creating an environmental awareness brochure that synthesizes all of their knowledge around pollution.

Learning Targets

“I Can…”

  • I can identify types of pollution around the world
  • I can analyze the effects that pollution has on human life
  • I can express feeling towards pollution using movement

Essential Questions

  • How does pollution affect people from different cultures in different ways?

Curriculum Standards

S3L2. Obtain, evaluate and communicate information about the effects of pollution (air, land, and water) and humans on the environment.

Arts Standards

D3CR.1: Demonstrates an understanding of creative and choreographic principles. processes and structures.

  1. Responds through movement to a variety of stimuli (eg. Literature, visual art, props)

D3CR.2: Demonstrates an understanding of dance as a way to communicate meaning.

  1. Uses a combination of improvisations and choreographic tools to create movement based on one’s own ideas, feelings, concepts and kinetics awareness

Content Vocabulary

  • Pollution
  • Reduce
  • Recycle
  • Reuse
  • Garbage
  • Litter
  • Smog
  • Smoke
  • Water Vapor
  • Acid Rain
  • Oil Spills
  • Run off
  • Pesticides
  • Fertilizers
  • Emission (ex: car, airplane)

Arts Vocabulary

  • Mood: emotion or feeling
  • Locomotive Movement: movement traveling through space
  • Non-locomotive movement: movement standing in one place
  • Body Levels: the plane in which your body is moving, including high, mid and low levels
  • Movement Pathways: the path a dancer travels through space, such as curved or straight

Technology Integration

Formative Assessment

  • Brainpop quiz: Effects of humans on the environment
  • Graphic organizer while watching video

Summative Assessment

  • Project 1 Rubric (See Downloads)

Materials

  • Microsoft SWAY program
  • Chart paper
  • Markers
  • Pollution Articles (located in Main Activity Part 2 below)
  • Computer/tablet for Padlet (if chosen)
  • Post it Notes
  • If doing extension, old t-shirts

Activating Strategy (5-10 min)

  • Students will view a slide show: https://sway.com/lT9ZpXuLI9nUt7Gy including images regarding pollution and discuss the images as a class.
  • After each slide, students will stop to interpret a movements to show how each image makes them feel. The teacher will ask students to explain their rationale for choosing each movement.

Main Activity

Part 1:

  • Introduce to students the concept of “Ego vs. Eco” (human advancement at the expense of nature vs. caring for the ecosystem): Use this website resource to explore/ research https://recyclingsutainabiliy4a.weebly.com/ego-vs-eco.html
  • Students will create digital journal entries on Padlet/Post it notes (teacher's choice) to explain possible causes of and solutions for pollution viewed in the images from the slideshow.

Part 2:

Part 3:

  • Student will create an environmental awareness brochure using six facts from the articles they have read and their science resources (books, texts, etc…). They must accurately use the science vocabulary in their persuasive video. A word bank will be provided from the class discussion.

Students will then summarize the project by answering the following questions:

  • How does pollution make us feel and why?
  • What is something new you learned about pollution while participating in this project?
  • How can we further reduce the amount of waste that we have?

*Extension activity to create a reusable shopping bag by recycling an old t-shirt- instructions provided in the link below. http://www.scatteredthoughtsofacraftymom.com/2015/09/how-to-make-tote-bag-from-t-shirt-no-sewing.html/2

Reflection Questions

  • Name the different types of pollution you saw and describe the effects it has on our world.
  • How does it make you feel seeing pollution around the world?
  • Where have you seen pollution in your own environment?
  • What could you do to help the environment? Can your family do anything together to positively impact the environment?

Differentiation

Below Grade Level:

  • Provide sentence starters for students’ journal entry writing.
  • Provide a template for the brochure.
  • Allow for peer tutor and pairings.

Above Grade Level:

  • Turn and talk with partners: How would you feel if you were in the same situation or you were in that environment?
  • In partners, what do you think caused the pollution in the environment? Come up with possible solutions.
  • Create electronic brochure in Microsoft Word with template and share within Office 365.

EL Students:

  • Include picture support on the vocabulary anchor.
  • Allow students to copy their articles into Microsoft Word Online and use the “Immersive Reader” feature to hear their articles read aloud. (Office365 Student Account>Word Document Online>View>Immersive Reader)
  • Provide sentence starters for students’ journal entry writing. Use first language support to clarify unknown academic vocabulary.
  • Provide a template for the brochure.

Additional Resources

Appendix

  • Rubric for Project 1

Credits

Pollution Matters

Description

In this project, students will examine the effects of pollution on the ecosystem in a musical way! This project includes students creating new lyrics to a song about pollution. Students step into role as lyricists and use music to help humans understand the causes and effects of pollution around them.

Learning Targets

“I Can…”

  • Write song lyrics that explain the various types of pollution
  • Create an adaptation for a song that relates to pollution and its effects on the environment
  • Rehearse and Perform a song for an audience

Essential Questions

  • How can I use music to evaluate and communicate information about the effects of pollution on people and the environment?

Curriculum Standards

S3L2. Obtain, evaluate and communicate information about the effects of pollution (air, land, and water) and humans on the environment.

ELAGSE3RI6: Distinguish their own point of view from that of the author of a text

Arts Standards

M3GM.1: Singing, alone and with others, a varied repertoire of music.

M3GM.5: Composing and arranging music within specified guidelines.

  1. Create rhythmic motives and enhance literature.
  2. Compose simple melodic patterns.
  3. Arrange rhythmic patterns creating simple forms and instrumentation.

Content Vocabulary

  • Garbage
  • Pollution
  • Compost
  • Biodegradable/non-biodegradable
  • Reduce, reuse, recycle
  • Conservation

Arts Vocabulary

  • Lyrics: the words of a song
  • Verse: writing arranged with a metrical rhythm, typically having a rhyme
  • Chorus: writing arrangement that is a repeated section of a song
  • Genre: category of a musical composition such as a rap, ballad, etc...

Technology Integration

Formative Assessment

  • Teacher will check for appropriate usage of unit vocabulary through their song writing.

Summative Assessment

  • Project 2 Rubric (See Downloads)

Materials

  • Recycled materials
  • Computer/tablet if using padlet
  • Post it Notes
  • Science journals

Activating Strategy (5-10 min)

  • Review the list Suggested Collected Items (See Downloads) and find 5-6 items to bring into the classroom. With the class, use Padlet (www.padlet.com) to generate ideas with the class on how we can reuse the items.
  • In whole group, use Footprint calculator and discuss their reactions and how their footprint can be improved.

Footprint Calculator website – http://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx http://web.stanford.edu/group/inquiry2insight/cgi-bin/i2sea-r2b/i2s.php?page=iscfc#

Main Activity

Part 1:

  • Watch YouTube Video: “Good Garbage” (https://youtu.be/GXSBHlLdboQ). Discuss in whole group vocabulary such as compost, biodegradable/non-biodegradable, recycle, reuse and reduce.
  • As a whole group, discuss the author’s purpose of writing the song. Why is it catchy? Discuss the rhythm, chorus, verse, rhyme, alliteration, stanza, poems, etc.
  • As a whole group, discuss well-known songs that students may like to use to create/write a class pollution song. Students will create a chorus for a new pollution song. Discuss the elements of the song in relation to the ELA standards main idea and supporting details. Separate into 4 groups and have students create verses for the four categories: air, land, water and conservation.

    *Strategically assign your students to homogenous groups.

Part 2:

  • Review “Good Garbage” song in whole group.
  • Have the students revise or edit their assigned part for their song.
  • Come up with music for the class song using Quaver or GarageBand.

*Extension: Students can also create their own instruments to create their music for their group’s songs.

Reflection Questions

  • What was the author’s purpose for writing the song?
  • What is the main idea? What are the details in the song?
  • How does the tone of the song make you feel?

Differentiation

Below Grade Level:

  • Provide students with the lyrics from the “Good Garbage” song to use as a model for writing their verses including sentence frames and a word bank.

Above Grade Level:

  • Students will create their own version of a pollution song.

EL Students:

  • Have students choose 3-5 key vocabulary words from the vocabulary list generated in project one to include in their verse.
  • Provide all EL students with the lyrics from the “Good Garbage” song to use as a model for writing their verses.

Additional Resources

Appendix

  • Rubric for Project 2
  • Suggested Collected Items

Credits

The Lorax

Description

In this project, students will listen to the story The Lorax by Dr. Seuss. Students will discuss the art elements they see in the text. They will sketch and use oil pastels to recreate their own scene analysis of the illustrations before and after the Onceler. Students will also relate to the changes of mood throughout the story. Students will then create a persuasive writing piece comparing and contrasting the Lorax’s habitat.

Learning Targets

“I Can…”

  • Create a persuasive piece to compare and contrast the scenes in the Lorax’s habitat before and after the Onceler
  • Create a piece of art that shows the cause and effect of the pollution that occurred in the Lorax

Essential Questions

  • How can art be used to compare and contrast the land of the Lorax before and after the Onceler?
  • How do you analyze the mood in a piece of artwork using key vocabulary?

Curriculum Standards

S3L2. Obtain, evaluate and communicate information about the effects of pollution (air, land, and water) and humans on the environment.

ELAGSE3RI6: Distinguish their own point of view from that of the author of a text

ELAGSE3RL5: Refer to parts of stories, dramas, and poems when writing or speaking about a text using terms such as chapter, scene, and stanza; describe how each successive part builds on earlier sections.

Arts Standards

TAES3.4: Designing and executing artistic and technical elements of theatre

  1. Uses technical theatre elements to design costumes, props, sets, sound and lighting
  2. Incorporates technical theatre elements such as costumes, props, sets, sound, lighting, into dramatizations

VA3PR.1 Creates artworks based on personal experience and selected themes.

  1. Creates artworks to express individual ideas, thoughts, and feelings from memory, imagination, and observation.
  2. Creates artworks emphasizing one or more elements of art (e.g., color, line, shape,form, texture).
  3. Creates art emphasizing one or more principles of design (balance, proportion, rhythm, emphasis, unity, contrast).
  4. Combines materials in new and inventive ways to make a finished work of art.

VA3PR.2 Understands and applies media, techniques, and processes of two-dimensional art processes (drawing, painting, printmaking, mixed-media) using tools and materials in a safe and appropriate manner to develop skills.

  1. Creates drawings with a variety of media (e.g., pencils, crayons, pastel).
  2. Draws lines with varied weights and in varied ways.
  3. Uses directional lines (vertical, horizontal, diagonal).
  4. Creates landscape with foreground, middle ground, background.
  5. Achieves distance through diminishing sizes and placement of objects higher on the page

VA3AR.1 Discusses his or her artwork and the artwork of others.

  1. Describes how size, colors, lines, shapes, and textures are organized in artwork to create a focus or center of interest (emphasis).
  2. Demonstrates a respect for art forms and art objects.
  3. Uses art terminology with emphasis on the elements of art: line, shape, form, color, space, texture.
  4. Uses art terminology with emphasis on the principles of design. (e.g., balance, proportion, rhythm, emphasis, unity, contrast).
  5. Recognizes that lines can be used to suggest movement, feelings, sounds, and ideas.
  6. Points to descriptive, directional, and expressive lines in artworks.
  7. Explains how texture (implied and actual) is used in two-dimensional shapes and three-dimensional forms.
  8. Identifies intermediate and complementary colors, tints, and shades of colors.
  9. Recognizes value as the lightness and darkness of a color.
  10. Distinguishes between 2-D shapes and 3-D forms.
  11. Recognizes the division of picture plane into foreground, middle ground, and background.
  12. Describes how negative and positive space is related.
  13. Recognizes and compares symmetrical and asymmetrical balance in artworks.

Content Vocabulary

  • Compare/Contrast
  • Cause and Effect
  • Pollution
  • Conservation
  • Environment
  • Air Pollution
  • Land Pollution
  • Water Pollution

Arts Vocabulary

  • Lines: an identifiable path created by a point moving in space; can vary in width, direction, and length; Lines can be horizontal, vertical, or diagonal, straight or curved, thick or thin
  • Color: the element of art that is produced when light, striking an object, is reflected back to the eye
  • Shape: a flat, enclosed area of an artwork created through lines, textures, colours or an area enclosed by other shapes
  • Form: refer to a three-dimensional composition or object within a three-dimensional composition
  • Texture: the perceived surface quality of a work of art
  • Shade: created when only black is added to a hue. This results in a rich, often more intense and darker color
  • Warm colors: such as red, yellow, and orange; evoke warmth because they remind us of things like the sun or fire
  • Cool colors: such as blue, green, and purple (violet); evoke a cool feeling because they remind us of things like water or grass
  • Proportion: concerned with the scale and size of an object (a whole) in relationship to another object (another whole)
  • Contrast: a principle of art, referring to the arrangement of opposite elements (light vs. dark colors, rough vs. smooth textures, large vs. small shapes, etc...

Technology Integration

Formative Assessment

  • Teacher will observe the students for the understanding of appropriate usage of unit vocabulary through their persuasive writing.

Summative Assessment

  • Project 3 Rubric (See Downloads)
  • Persuasive Writing Piece

Materials

  • The Lorax Book- eBook
  • Pastel Card paper
  • Black Sharpies
  • Pencils
  • Pastels
  • Fixatives (after drawing is complete- Spray and let dry so pastel does not smuge)
  • Loose-leaf paper for writing piece

Activating Strategy (5-10 min)

  • Read and listen to the first half of the eBook of The Lorax by Dr. Seuss.

Main Activity

Part 1:

  • After the first half of The Lorax with the students, discuss as a group the art elements they saw while reading.
  • Use this The Lorax movie clip to help with recalling the mood of the “beginning” part: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1j_DThGI9M&feature=youtu.be
  • Students will fold paper in half. (landscape) Label “Before the Onceler” on the left hand side of the paper with center adjustment and “After the Onceler” on the right hand side of the paper with center adjustment.
  • Then they will lightly sketch the horizon line, the foreground and the background on both sides of the paper. Once the students sketch, they will use the black sharpies to outline their drawings.
  • Students will then use oil pastels to recreate the before scene. This will be where the colors are warm. Remind students to include the characters: Barbaloot Bears, Truffala trees, Hummingfish, and Swammie Swams.

Part 2:

  • Read the second half of The Lorax with the students. Discuss as a group the art elements they saw while reading the second half of the story.
  • Use this movie clip to help with recalling the mood of the “ending” part: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1jpKTYmIzA&feature=youtu.be
  • Students will then use oil pastels to recreate the “After the Onceler” scene. Remind students to think about how many characters have vanished from the setting. How did the colors change? What happened to the Truffla trees?
  • In whole group, teacher will lead a discussion referring to theatrical set rendering. Using the illustrations that the student created we can discuss how a set might be designed and assembled in a theatrical performance.
  • Use a sample drawing of the scene done in black and white and have the students experiment with a flashlight and colored light filters to recreate the mood of their illustration as a model of the set.

Part 3:

  • To conclude the project, in whole group, discuss the point of view from the main characters (Onceler/ Lorax). Have students pair up and recreate a quick conversation between the characters. Point of view must be clearly identified and supported.
  • Students will then create their own persuasive writing piece using their Suess inspired illustration picture to compare and contrast the Lorax’s habitat before and after the Onceler.

Extension Activity: Discuss the artist Vik Munez. Use the pictures attached to discuss his artwork and what inspires him. Students will be able to create their own art pieces using garbage collected.
http://time.com/3775724/portraits-with-purpose-vik-muniz-in-waste-land/

Reflection Questions

  • How does the Land of the Lifted Lorax compare after the Onceler?
  • How would you describe the mood of the scene before and after the Onceler?
  • What was the main cause of the destruction to the Land of the Lifted Lorax?

Differentiation

Below Grade Level:

  • Folded paper available and provide pencil sketch of background, foreground and horizon line.
  • Provide sentence starters for students. Include a visual word bank for additional support.

Above Grade Level:

  • Third Panel of the storyboard with the possibly of the UNLESS scene and how they think it would look (possible outcomes, new small plants growing, grass beginning to grow again etc…).

EL Students:

  • Make sure to use the ebook link provided below because it has the words to the story along with the pictures.

Additional Resources

Appendix

  • Rubric for Project 3

Credits

Grade 3: Pollution Matters

Additional Resources

Websites

Suggested Books

  • The Lorax by Dr. Seuss

Additional Videos

Scientific Sketching