edTPA Indirect Instruction Lesson Plan Template Earth: The Apple of Our Eye _________________________________________________________________________ Central Focus/Big Idea:

Agriculture Subject of this lesson: Arable farmland Grade Level: 4th NC Essential Standard(s): 4.L.1 Understand the effects of environmental changes, adaptations and behaviors that enable animals (including humans) to survive in changing habitats. Next Generation Science Standard(s): 4-E S S2- 1. Make observations and/or measurements to provide evidence of the effects of weathering or the rate of erosion by water, ice, wind, or vegetation. 21st Century Skills: Critical thinking and problem solving- Students are actively coming up with solutions for how to solve the problem of arable farm land. Leadership & responsibility- Students are assuring the safety and rights of those around them through writing a letter to the mayor addressing an issue in their town. Flexibility & adaptability- Students are learning about how farmers are having to adjust to the growing changes in agriculture. Academic Language Demand Language Function: In the table below highlight the three most important language functions for your lesson. Explain why you chose these. Analyze Argue Categorize Compare/contrast Describe Explain Interpret Predict Question Retell Summarize Students are arguing their point for why the mayor should not build a shopping mall on arable farm land. Students are explaining how humans affect the availability of arable farmland. Through formal questioning in the lesson, students are summarizing the effects that agriculture has on our food supply. Scientific Vocabulary: What are the key scientific terms that your students will learn through this lesson? Agriculture, Arable Instructional Objective: Students will be able to summarize and explain the amount of arable farmland in our world, and how this is affected by humans. Students will be able to understand the importance of amount of arable farmland through a writing activity that includes at least 3 facts from the lesson.

Prior Knowledge (student): Background knowledge on where there food comes from and what farmers do to contribute to this Content Knowledge (teacher): Teacher should have reviewed attached sheet so that he/she does not have to read directly from it, as well as have a clear understanding of agriculture and arable farmland. Accommodations for special needs (individual and/or small group): For students that have difficulty following along with verbal instruction, they will be provided with the attached sheet so they can read and follow along at the same time to make connections to what were doing with the apple. Materials and Technology requirements: 1 apple, cutting board, 22 paper cut outs of an apple, 22 pairs of scissors Total Estimated Time: 45 minutes Source of lesson: AG in the classroom, attached Population Connection sheet Safety considerations: They will not have access to the knife that is used to cut the apple, they will use the scissors provided with caution

Content and Strategies (Procedure) Engage: Today, for our science lesson, were going to be talking about agriculture and why it is important to the everyday life that we live. First were going to have a little discussion to get our brains warmed up, and then we are going to do a really cool visual experiment to explain how and why agriculture has changed over the years and how it effects you. Can anyone tell me what the word agriculture even means? (call on 2-3 students) Those are great answers! The actual definition of agriculture is- The science or practice of farming, including cultivation of the soil for the growing of crops and the rearing of animals to provide food, wool, and other products. So to start off, I want you to imagine your favorite piece of fruit or your favorite vegetable in your head. I want you to think about how excited you are when your mom or dad tells you that youre going to have that for a snack that day, or have it with your dinner that night. Now, imagine that after youre done eating it that day, your mom looks at you and says I really hope you enjoyed that fruit or vegetable, because thats the last time youll ever be able to eat it! Due to changes in agriculture, that fruit or vegetable can no longer be grown. WHAT?! How is that even possible?! How does that even make sense?! Well, I want you to think in your head of where that food item even comes from? For those of you that thought the grocery store, youre right. It does come from the grocery store. But where does it come from even before that? Right, a farm. And how do farms produce these food items? Right, they grow them in the soil or they are produced on trees. So now that we know how the food we love to eat every day is connected to agriculture, Im going to ask you a question that I want you to think about before we do this next experiment. Can we feed the whole world with just one apple slice? Explore: Every student will get a paper cut out of an apple and a pair of scissors. Students will follow along with you and cut their paper apple as you cut the real apple. Speak directly from Earth: The Apple of Our Eye. Make sure to read out the directions for how to cut the apple to the students. For example, for the water portion of the apple, say We are first going to cut our apple into four parts. Now I want you to hold out of the parts in your hand. Then ask the question about what that portion represents. Explanation: So what do you think now, can we feed the whole world with just one apple slice? Using what we know, how can only 1/32 of our earth be available to grow the amount of food needed to feed the ENTIRE universe? Explain your findings to your table buddy. (Give students a few minutes to explain newly learned concept to their table buddy) Bring activity to a close by saying: In order to feed the nearly 80 million humans added to the population annually, 12 million acres of new land must be put into production. Although it is a natural process, erosion of land by wind and water is the most serious cause of soil loss and degradation. This process is accelerated greatly by things that humans do to arable land that make it more vulnerable to erosion. What do you think are some things that humans do to contribute to the acceleration of erosion of arable land? (Students should say: deforestation, pollution, overfarming). Every year, 80 million humans are added to the population of Earth. With a limited amount of land and a growing number of people to feed from that land, each person's portion of food becomes smaller and smaller. Protecting our land resources is therefore of great importance. Elaborate: So now, in order to show me what youve learned today, I want you pretend that you are a citizen of a town and the mayor is proposing an idea that he wants to dig up part of the

citys available farm land to build a new shopping center. With the knowledge that youve learned today, I want you to write him a letter as a concerned citizen explaining why this is a bad idea. How and why will this affect the whole community and its resources? Include some new facts that youve learned today about the availability of arable land and why it should be preserved. What moves we should make to preserve this farmland, such as not building on arable land, reducing pollution, or stabilizing human growth? Your letter should include at least 3 facts from our activity today. Evaluate: Formal: Questions that are asked throughout the lesson Summative: Teacher will collect students note to the mayor to make sure questions proposed about the entry are answered adequately with facts learned from the lesson. If the entry is not up to par with other student entries, teacher will assess individual student further with verbal questioning.