Humans, the Environment, and the Great Plains

Big Book Balance

Background:

This lesson plan will promote an awareness of environmental issues and ways that students can improve the ecological imbalances in the northern Great Plains. Research will be conducted by students on a variety of topics to create an ABC Big Book about environmental issues that includes an index.

Objective:

To highlight environmental conditions of the northern Great Plains and suggest ways to improve the ecological balance. Additionally, students will develop research skills, emphasizing the use of an index and develop a writing process to produce an informative article. The end result will be a Big Book outlining ways to improve the environment of the northern Great Plains.

 Plan:

1. Discuss in the class issues regarding the environment of the northern Great Plains, and address general environmental issues like pollution, erosion, and other related topics.
2.  Have students select a letter from the alphabet of their choice to research for the ABC book. Brainstorm topics to address. Students can use materials available in the school library, the local library, or the Internet for information on their articles.
3.  Next, have students write a short informative article on their selected topic. Students should select important facts, concepts, and keywords from their articles to be listed in the index. With the articles and index prepared, students will create illustrations by hand or cut out from magazines to be used in conjunction with their articles.
4.  Finally, each student is responsible for laying out and putting together the individual pages of the book. Each page, in its final form, will include a large letter, an article, illustrations, and index entries. Together, each page will then be put together to form the ABC Big Book of Environment.

Testing, Grading, and Evaluation:

At the completion of the project, students will have addressed some aspect of northern Great Plains environment in detail. Additionally, by examining pages from other students, a more complete understanding of the environment will be gained.

Primary Course: Social Studies

Applicable Grades: 3 - 8 This project is designed for Grade 3 and up. The higher the grade, the more in-depth the content of the pages.

Materials Needed: Stencils of large letters, blank big book with 30 pages, writing paper, art supplies

Related Courses: Literature, Language Arts, Science

Time Required: Three 1-hour sessions

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