NEGATIVE IMPACTS OF DEFORESTATION LESSON PLAN Your Name: Carlie Engels Title of Lesson: Negative Impacts of Deforestation Grade:

4th Grade STANDARDS Arizona Science Standards: Concept 1: Changes in Environments, PO 1. Describe how natural events and human activities have positive and negative impacts on environments (e.g., fire, floods, pollution, dams). Common Core Language Arts Standards: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.4.9 Integrate information from two texts on the same topic in order to write or speak about the subject knowledgeably. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.4.1 Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information. LESSON SUMMARY/OVERVIEW In this lesson, students will be exploring the negative impacts of deforestation. This topic is connected to sustainability, as students need to be aware of how their actions today may be compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. The students will be performing a jigsaw activity in order to learn about four major impacts of deforestation. These impacts include climate change, soil erosion, loss of biodiversity, and the water cycle. Students will break into groups of four. Each group member will be responsible for researching information online on one of the four topics. The students will be provided with two web pages to view in order to read and record information on their topic. They will need to integrate the information from the two web pages in order to speak knowledgeably about their topic to their group mates. After researching their topic, the students will present their findings to their group mates and learn about all four negative impacts of deforestation. As a closing activity and a summative assessment of learning, the students will be instructed to write a response to the following prompt: What are some negative impacts of deforestation? How do you think deforestation will affect our future and the environment? Describe what the future might be like without rainforests. The students will be encouraged to use futures thinking when completing this writing task. Writing responses will be shared and discussed at the conclusion of the lesson. OBJECTIVES Students will be able to research and integrate information from two online texts in order to speak about the subject knowledgably Students will be able to explain and describe how deforestation is negatively impacting the environment and human society. Students will be able to create a poster as a group that showcases the four major effects of deforestation that they learned about. Students will be able to write an opinionated response, reflecting upon the negative impacts of deforestation and how deforestation might effect future generations. ASSESSMENT/EVALUATION Formative: The teacher will informally assess students by walking around the room and observing student research and group discussions. When listening to group discussions, the teacher can determine if the students integrated information from two texts in order to speak knowledgeably on the topic. Formative: The teacher will use the group poster as a way of assessing student knowledge on the negative impacts of deforestation on the environment. Summative: The teacher can look to the students writing responses as a way of formally assessing their knowledge gained through the lesson. The teacher can also determine if the students utilized futures thinking through this assessment. PREREQUISITE KNOWLEDGE At this point in the week, students will have knowledge about what a rainforest is, the benefit of trees in a rainforest, and deforestation and its causes. Students need to know that a rainforest is a complex environment made up of a large variety of living and non-living things. The environment is known for having year-round warmth and rainfall. Students will also know that trees produce oxygen and absorb carbon dioxide. Furthermore, students will know that deforestation is the cutting, clearing, and removal of areas of the rainforest. The teacher will access their prior knowledge by asking questions at the beginning of the lesson and showing a short video clip that will remind them of the topic.

MATERIALS List of required materials: Overhead projector Internet access for each student Effects of Deforestation handout (provided below) Colored construction paper Markers, crayons, colored pencils Lined paper Pen or pencil VOCABULARY/KEY WORDS List of key vocabulary terms: Deforestation: the process whereby natural forests are cleared through logging and/or burning, either to use the timber or to replace the area for alternative uses. Ecosystem: a biological community of interacting organisms and their physical environment. Biodiversity: the variety of life in the world or in a particular habitat or ecosystem. Extinction: the state or process of a species, family, or larger group being or becoming extinct. Climate Change: the change in global climate patterns Greenhouse Gas: a gas that contributes to the greenhouse effect by absorbing infrared radiation, e.g., carbon dioxide and chlorofluorocarbons. Soil Erosion: the process of eroding or being eroded by wind, water, or other natural agents. Drought: a prolonged period of abnormally low rainfall; a shortage of water resulting from this.

TEACHING PROCEDURES Procedural Steps: 1) The teacher will begin by saying, Yesterday we learned about deforestation. Can anyone remind the class what deforestation means? A student should respond by stating that deforestation is the clearing of forests and cutting down of trees to for logging, mining, cattle, and agriculture. The teacher will say, Good! These human act ivities are disturbing the rainforests ecosystem and causing negative impacts to animals and to our environment. Today will be exploring many of the negative impacts of deforestation and we will be thinking critically about the ways that deforestation might impact our future. 2) The teacher will play the WWF Rainforest: Deforestation Effects video for the class using the overhead projector. She will say, Now, we are going to watch a short video about how deforestation is affecting the animals in the Amazon Rainforest. This video can be found at http://youtu.be/3OTgiosu94c 3) After the short video the teacher will explain, This video explored one negative effect of deforestation, extinction. Today, you will be exploring four negative effects of deforestation in small groups. The four negative impacts we will be learning about are loss of biodiversity and extinction, climate change and greenhouse gasses, the water cycle and drought, and soil erosion. Some of the key vocabulary terms, like greenhouse gas and soil erosion, may by unfamiliar to the stu dents. The teacher should review the meaning of these words with the class before they start their Internet research. For example, the teacher will explain, The Earths atmosphere contains greenhouse gasses. One greenhouse gas that we learned about this week is carbon dioxide. Humans breathe out carbon dioxide and the burning of fossil fuels produce carbon dioxide. When too many greenhouse gasses are released into the atmosphere, climate change may occur because these gasses trap heat from the sun inside the atmosphere, warming our planet. 4) The teacher will explain, Next we are going to be doing a jigsaw activity to learn about some negative effects of deforestation. The students should be familiar with the jigsaw method because the class has performed ac tivities using this method before. The teacher will break the class into groups of four; these will be their home groups. Each group member will be assigned one topic to become an expert on. Once the home groups are determined and each member knows what topic they will be researching, the teacher will pass out the Effects of Deforestation handout (provided below).

5) The students will use the computer lab/laptops/Google chrome books to explore two websites. The two teacher-approved websites for student exploration are: http://www.ecokids.ca/pub/eco_info/topics/forests/threats.cfm http://eschooltoday.com/forests/problems-of-deforestation.html The students will read the section that pertains to their assigned expert topic on both websites. For example, the student who is an expert on loss of biodiversity/extinction will read the pa ragraph about loss of biodiversity on the eschooltoday website and then read the paragraph about species extinction on the ecokids website. The student will then integrate the knowledge gained from each webpage and write the main points and ideas about their topic on their handout. 6) After giving the students about 10 minutes to research and record the main ideas of their topic, the teacher will direct the students to meet with their expert groups to discuss their findings. The teacher will designate each corner of the classroom for an expert group. Once in their expert groups, the students will debrief and discuss their findings. If a student forgot to write an important piece of information on their handout, they can fill it in at this time. 7) After meeting with the expert groups, the students will return to their home groups to teach their group mates about their topic. At this time, the students will fill in the three remaining parts of the handout with information from the expert of their group. 8) The teacher will hand out construction paper and coloring supplies to each home group. The students will create a poster that showcases the negative impacts of deforestation. The students can draw pictures and write important facts they gained from their research. The teacher can post the posters around the school or outside the classroom to help raise awareness about the issue. 9) As a closing, the teacher will ask the students to take out a piece of paper and a pencil. The teacher will ask the students to reflect upon their learning in writing. The teacher will post a writing prompt on the overhead projector. This writing prompt will state: What are some negative impacts of deforestation? How do you think deforestation will affect our future and the environment? Describe what the future might be like without rainforests. This activity will engage the students in futures thinking as they will be encouraged to think about how the actions of today will affect the future. RESOURCES List any references you used to create this lesson. If you borrowed ideas from any lesson plans please note them here. Use APA format.

Earth Day Canada. (1994). Ecokids: Threats to our forests. Retrieved from http://www.ecokids.ca/pub/eco_info/topics/forests/threats.cfm Eschooltoday. (2010). Effects of deforestation. Retrieved from http://eschooltoday.com/forests/problems-of-deforestation.html
WAYS OF THINKING CONNECTION This lesson incorporates futures thinking. Futures thinking is thinking about how the past and the present influence the future. When using futures thinking in a lesson, students should be encouraged to envision the futures they want and protect and respond to futures that they not want. Incorporating futures thinking into lesson plans is beneficial to students, as it allows them to begin to think about the consequences that their actions may have. It also encourages students to think critically about their past and determine if events from the past have affected the present day. Futures thinking also allows students to imagine more sustainable futures. After learning about the many negative effects of deforestation, the students are challenged to think about how these effects will impact the future. This lesson connects to futures thinking when the students are asked to write an opinionated response to the prompt: What are some negative impacts of deforestation? How do you think deforestation will affect our future and the environment? Describe what the future might be like without rainforests. Students should realize that a future without rainforests could mean no future at all. Without rainforests our climate would get warmer and warmer because there would be an excess amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The water cycle would also be affected and drought would become a common occurrence in many areas. Furthermore, we would loose a large amount of biodiversity through extinction of plants and animals. Many of the medicines of today come from rainforest plants. Without these plants, disease could run rampant. Also, when rainforests are destroyed, soil erosion occurs. Soil never gets its full potential back after erosion takes place, meaning growth of new plants would be challenging. My hopes are that through the futures thinking response, students will begin to image ways to create a more sustainable future and help raise awareness in their communities about the issue.

Climate Change/Greenhouse Gasses:

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Soil Erosion:

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Loss of Biodiversity/Extinction:

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The Water Cycle/Drought:

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