Lesson Plan

Teacher Name Mitchell Orr Date 03/12/2020

Subject Area Science Grade 4/5
Topic Climate Change Time 11 – 12:05

General Learner 5–9 Investigate relationships between weather phenomena and human
Outcome(s) activity.
Taken from Alberta
Program of Studies

Specific Learner 11. Understand that climate refers to long term weather trends in a
Outcome(s) particular region and that climate varies throughout the world.
Taken from Alberta 12. Recognize that human actions can affect climate, and identify human
Program of Studies actions that
Learning Students will:
Objectives  Learn the difference between ‘climate’ and ‘weather’
What do you want your  Understand what the atmosphere is and why it’s important
students to learn?  Explain what climate change is
Assessment
How will you know your  Exit slip (provided for them)
students have learned?
Materials  PowerPoint
What resources will you
 Visual Journals (VJ)
need?

 Have the class gather in the center of the room

 Have a VJ page “what is the difference between weather and climate?
 Split into 3 sections: Weather vs. Climate, Atmosphere, and Climate Change
 For each section, they will be adding their wonderings, sketch noting and regular note-
taking
Introduction  Going to have to back track a bit for this lesson
5-10 minutes  “Last lesson, I left you guys with some very in-depth questions. This was a mistake on
my part – we need to cover the basics before we can start diving into those deeper
thinking questions. For today then, we are just going to be nailing down the difference
between climate and the weather, discussing what the atmosphere is and as scratching
the surface with the question ‘what is climate change’?

Body  talk about the atmosphere FIRST

20-25 minutes  composition of atmosphere
 78% nitrogen
 21% oxygen
 Carbon Dioxide – 0.04%
 Draw out an “earth” Surround this earth with a dashed line, then draw a sun
 Ask the class what the atmosphere is
 Explain that it is responsible for protecting the earth from the sun’s harmful rays like
UV – Who’s gotten a sun burn before?
 It also traps heat – which is very very useful. Allows there to be life on the planet. –
we’ll go into this into more detail at a later point
 Blanket analogy (Explain what an ‘analogy’ is before getting into the actual analogy
 Break off, let them discuss what is the atmosphere is with their peers for 5-10 min. add
thoughts to VJ
 Bring them back
 Show them the climate vs. weather Venn diagram
 Emphasize the differences between climate and weather
 In the overlap, highlight the things in common between the two (How they are
measured: wind speed, temperature, humidity, precipitation).
 Analogies for climate vs weather
 Sports analogy – a few plays vs. entire soccer season

 Allow them to break off, discuss/ add notes about ‘what is the difference between
climate and weather’ for 5-10 minutes

 Bring them back and then show them the graph

 Graph will likely cause a few questions. Prompt them with the following:

What does 'global' mean (in the title)?

       What do the numbers going up the right-hand side show? **Kids will be used to
C(Celsius), not F remember
       What do the three numbers at the bottom show?
       Can someone describe what is happening to the squiggly red line?
       Can someone describe what the rise in the red line means for the earth?


 Answer these questions, while still having them write out their wonderings

 Cake analogy
Cake analogy (climate change) Let’s say a storm (weather) is like a cake. A storm has
a specific set of ingredients, which the atmosphere provides. If we don’t get the
ingredients, we’re not going to make a cake. A storm needs air masses to collide
and rise, allowing water to condense and fall out as rain. A cake needs a
combination of flour, eggs, butter and sugar.
Now what happens if we change the ingredients slightly? Say we use wholemeal
flour, which makes the cake dense. Or we use more sugar, which makes it
sweeter. We’ll still make a cake, but it will be different from before. Changing the
ingredients doesn’t change the fact that it is you who has to make the cake. This
is what climate change does. It doesn’t make the cake, but it changes the
ingredients! The cake will turn out a bit different.

 May or may not be time to discuss this last question in groups before the exit slips***
 Questions for lesson
 What is the difference between climate and weather?
 What is the atmosphere?
 What is climate change?
  Have them come back
Closure  Exit slip is the 3 questions that they were working on
5-10 minutes  They are to answer these WITHOUT their VJ
 Will assess their knowledge and plan from their going forward

Exit slip

1) What is the difference between climate and weather?

2) What is the atmosphere?

3) What is climate change?

Reflection:

Stars
- Students remained engaged during the lesson
- Switching back and forth from drawing on the white board and the slides on the Smart
board was a good way to keep the student’s attention – movement is key!
- Analogies were good way for the kids to relate better to the subject material, which is
helpful in building better understanding.
Wishes
- After students go off to discuss the material in groups, incorporate a larger class
discussion before moving on to reinforce the material
- Give the students a bit more time to write things down
- Have the students physically get up and leave the centre of the room during group
discussions – incorporates more movement.