During the month of January my first-grade class worked on a global unit of inquiry about polar regions, how they are being affected by global warming and climate change, and what we can do reduce our carbon footprint.
These are some of the activities that we carried out in each of the steps in the inquiry process.
Global Approach: Biodiversity, Desertification
Global Goals: 13, 14 and 15
Essential Question: What can we do to make this world a better place to live and help to achieve the global goals by 2.030?
Concepts: Causation, change, connection
Objectives:
- Identify polar regions and its characteristics.
- Recognize polar animals.
-Understand the causes and consequences of global warming.
- Identify and adopt ways to reduce our carbon footprint.
- Reduce the amount of waste.
For our first step in our unit of inquiry called WE OBSERVE, WONDER AND QUESTION, students shared their initial thoughts, background knowledge and hypotheses about these questions.
- What are seasons?
- Why some countries don’t have seasons?
- What are the main characteristics of winter?
- How do animals and people live throughout winter?
- What are Polar regions?
- How is global warming affecting the polar regions?
Some of the learning activities that were carried out during this first step are described below.
Students learned this song about seasons "Las estaciones" and they listened to the story "Llego el invierno" which was a a great resource that encouraged them to wonder why and how the climate changes.
Students wrote down their initial questions and what they knew about it, and this information was displayed on The Question / Wonder Wall which also served as reference throughout the unit.
Students had also virtual exchange with a class in Colombia to learn about the differences and similarities of climate between both countries: United States and Colombia. Students shared about how weather made them feel, what their favorite kind of weather was and what they liked to do depending on the weather. One of the common questions after this exchange, was how it was possible that Colombia didn't have snow.
To spark students' curiosity about why there are places in the world that have seasons and others that do not. Each cooperative group was given a world globe and discussed what they saw and what they found interesting. Students watched some videos that proved some of their predictions: The Earth is tilted and due to its movement in relation to the sun, the earth has seasons. Students could also confirm that the coldest places on Earth are the North Pole and South Pole. They learned about the Equator and that the regions located near the Equator experience warm temperatures.
Students also shared about what they like doing during winter and what they knew about polar animals.
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For the second step: WE INVESTIGATE AND LEARN, the lines of inquiry that guided the learning process and activities were:
- Why are the polar regions cold?
- What are the differences between the Arctic and Antarctic poles?
- What are the polar animals?
- How do animals survive through winter (Hibernate, migrate, adapt)
- What role do the Polar Regions play in controlling and regulating the climate of the entire planet?
- What can we do to protect the polar regions?
- How is global warming affecting the polar regions?
- How is global warming and climate change affecting the world? (Current events)
- What are the consequences in the short and long term of global warming in the polar regions?
- What can we do to prevent global warming?
- What steps can we take to reduce our carbon footprint?
Some of these learning activities were:
Students started by learning about the Arctic and The Antarctic, students were modeled and encouraged to use the Note Taking strategy to record, keep track of and synthesize important information presented in the videos, readings and pictures about the North and South Poles that were presented to them. Students kept these note through out the unit and they independently used them to record their findings, share with friends, write on their journals and reflect about their learning.
Since of the main questions from the first step was: What is snow made of? Students carried out an experiment called Why is snow white? from Mystery Science
Students also carried out the Polar Bear Blubber science experiment to learn how animals are able to stay warm using fat and ice.
Students played the Emperor Penguin Parents game in which they needed to figure out the best position for their feet to cradle and balance the ball on the top of their feet as they moved around to finally pass ball to their partner’s feet without letting the "egg" touch the ground.
To learn about how animals survive during winter, students worked in groups of experts.
Each group was assigned a topic: Hibernation - Migration -Adaptation. Each group received a reading and based on it they needed to write the definition, the drawing, important facts and identify examples of animals. To socialize their findings, students needed to design a poster to explain to their peers the assigned topic.
Learning about current events has always been a great tool to show students the importance and purpose of learning the concepts and topics studied. Knowing about what's happening in the world reaffirms the urgency to reflect our role as citizens and the need to take action to help the world.
Students learned and wrote their opinion about what's happening Polar Bears in Russia and how a drought in South Africa is affecting baby flamingos.
To discover how our actions are causing the detriment of our planet Earth and produce an adverse effect that contributes to climate change and global warming, students carried out an activity from Mystery Science "Where does energy come from?"
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STEP 3: WE SHARE OUR IDEAS
STEP 4: WE REFLECT
Although these two steps occur through out the unit. Students were encouraged to see where everyday objects were made in. Students classified most of their objects by country and used the information to do a graph.
Based on the information students had learned, they discussed about what it is needed to make and bring those objects to The United States and how this reflects in our carbon footprint.
Students made a cause - effect to illustrate all the consequences that climate change brings to the world.
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STEP 5: WE TAKE ACTION AND CHANGE
Now, it was the time to translate all our learning into actions.
Students took the Power Down challenge to stop phantom power by unplugging electronic devices. They created flipgrid videos to share their voice and invite others to take the pledge.
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