Instructional Lesson Plan- STEM 434

Lesson Overview
Overview
Lesson Author: Conley Hausle Date: 28 October 2018
Grade Level: Second Grade
Subject Area: Science (organisms and how they interact with their environment) and Health (How the
environment aids human health and ways to help the environment)
Time Allotment: 120 minutes over 2 days
Short Description:
In this lesson, students will learn that living organisms, specifically plants and humans, depend on their
environment to survive and prosper. This integrates with the health standard that discusses how the
environment influences health and ways to protect the environment. This will occur by having the
students make a small book on what they learn.
Standards
State Curriculum Standards met in this lesson:
Science: Living Systems Standard 2.5 The student will investigate and understand that living things are
part of a system. Key concepts include: a) living organisms are interdependent with their living and
nonliving surroundings
Health: Advocacy and Health Promotion Standard 2.3 The student will describe the influences and
factors that impact health and wellness. l) Describe how the environment influences health and how to
protect the environment.
Instructional Outcomes:
At the end of this lesson, students will be able to:
 Explain if something is living or nonliving and why
 Differentiate between living and nonliving parts of a plant’s environment
 Classify parts of their own environment as living or nonliving
 Identify three ways their environment can affect their health
 Demonstrate three ways to help protect the environment.
Focus: “Big Ideas” & “Essential Questions”
 Living beings depend on living and nonliving aspects of their environment to thrive.
 Human health is influenced by the environment.
 Humans can help protect the environment.
 What is a living thing?
 What is a nonliving thing?
 How does the environment affect the health of plants?
 How does the environment affect the health of people?
 Why do people need to protect the environment?
 How can people protect the environment?
Procedures
Lesson Set/Launch
Engage & Elicit Phase.
The topic will be introduced to the students via a KWL chart, which will be revisited at the end of the
lesson. This will allow the instructor to get an idea of what the students already know. It will also let the
instructor see what their students want to learn about the topic, and the teacher might be able to integrate
some of this into the lesson. The students will address what they know and want to know about living vs.
nonliving things, how plants and humans interact with their environments, and how humans can help
protect the environment.
Rationale:
This will be done after the lesson on plants, so that students will already have an idea of what a plant
needs to survive. They can also relate everything they learn to the plants they are caring for in the
garden.
Techniques and Activities:
1. (Engage): Teacher will introduce topic to students via a video. During the examples section of
the video, the teacher will pause after each item is announced and run through the video’s
checklist on if it is nonliving or living with the class. The teacher will then play the example to
see if the class was correct.
2. (Explain): Teacher will explain how a plant’s environment affects its growth, focusing on things
like weather and animal life. The teacher will relate this to human growth as well, focusing on
how humans are influenced by things like weather, temperature, animal life, and plant life.
3. (Explain): Teacher and students will play the game on surviving as a plant.
4. (Explain): Students and teacher will discuss why their game ended the way it did. Specific topics
might include how the different variables affected their plant’s growth.
5. (Explore): Students will be given four pictures, one of a tree, one of a bird, one of a toy car, and
one of a phone. They will have to determine which ones are living and which ones are nonliving
based on what they have learned thus far.
6. (Elaborate): Students will discuss how this is similar to how humans are affected by their
environment.
7. (Elaborate): The students will create a booklet that shows things they’ve learned in the lesson,
including topics like living versus nonliving things and how to help the environment.
8. (Evaluate): Students will complete a quiz on what they learned in the lesson
Lesson Closure:
The lesson will close with the quiz (quiz at end of lesson plan). They will also turn in their booklet for
grading (instructions and rubric at end of lesson plan).
Assessment/Evaluation:
 Each student will take a quiz the learned material. It will be a simple quiz that will show if they
know how plants are affected by their environment, how humans are affected by their
environment, the difference between living and nonliving things, and how to help the
environment.
 Students will complete their booklet project.

Student Products:
Students will create a booklet for grading. Said booklet will include:
 Student’s own definition of a living thing
 Student’s own definition of a nonliving thing.
 An example of each.
 A short summary of what plants need in their environment.
 A short summary of how the environment can affect human health.
 Examples of how to help the environment
Supplemental Activities:
Extension: Students will explain how a random animal assigned by the teacher (something like a frog, a
bird, or a deer) is effected by different aspects of its environment such as weather, temperature, and plant
life. This requires the student to extend their plant knowledge to an animal, and also incorporates
research skills.
Remediation: Students will watch a video about living versus nonliving things, and summarize what
they learned orally to the teacher when they finish watching the video.
Adaptations for Special Learners:
Learners with disabilities: Tailor to individual abilities
 Blindness/Vision Impairment: Read each page of the game, alternate oral assignment in place of
booklet, complete quiz orally
 Deafness/Hearing Impairment: Seat close enough to the screen to clearly see game.
 Autism: Allow the child to go, escorted by an adult, to a quiet place in the school if they become
overwhelmed
 ADHD: Seat the student directly in front of the teacher so the teacher can help the child focus.
English Second Language Students
 Allow to complete quiz and booklet digitally in their native language
 Have translator present if possible
Gifted Students
 Help other students
 Require them to include, in addition to explaining how to help the environment, a plan to help
improve the school environment in their booklet. This could be something as simple as
“everyone in the school needs to put their trash in trashcans.”
Differentiated Instruction & Cross-Curricula Integration:
Accommodations and extensions are provided for unique learners by doing things like rearranging
seating, providing alternate assignments, altering assignments, and making allowances for sensory
overload. The integrates English in the booklet and quiz. Math is integrated in the game. Health is
integrated into the lesson itself. Art is also integrated into the booklet. Literacy will be improved by the
research aspects of the lesson.
Resources
Materials and resources needed for this lesson.
Whiteboard
Dry erase markers
Whiteboard eraser
Quiz/Rubric
Booklet Project

Technology resources needed for this lesson

Computer
Internet
Overhead Projector

Web Addresses needed for this lesson:

https://bbsrc.ukri.org/bbsrc/cache/file/277CD3E7-6173-4352-931C3364FA5CED83.swf
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEz7RPvQCAI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b83sEdsnf-0