Developmental Lesson Plan

Teacher Candidate: Kelsey Frary Date: April 1st, 2021

Group Size: 25 Students Allotted Time: 60 minutes, 1 day Grade Level: Fourth Grade

Subject or Topic: Lesson Plan #5: Famous Landforms and National Parks

Common Core/PA Standard(s):

Standard - 3.3.4.A1:

Describe basic landforms.

NGSS Standard:

Students who demonstrate understanding can:

4-ESS2- Analyze and interpret data from maps to describe patterns of Earth’s features.

Learning Targets/Objectives:
- The fourth grade students will be able to name and describe, and give the location of
three different famous landforms.
- The fourth grade students will be able to name/explain popular recreational activities
that can take place in each of the different famous landforms.

Assessment Approaches: Evidence:

1.Watching famous landform/ National Parks 1.Observation
videos 2. Observation
2. Answering questions/interacting while 3. Collect
reading the instructional picture book.
3. Brochure
Assessment Scale:
● Rubric with assessment scale rubric attached down below.
● Advanced, Proficient, Basic scale

Subject Matter/Content:
Prerequisites: - A basic understanding of the five different landforms we are focusing on
(mountains, valleys, deserts, canyons, and coastlines) weathering/erosion, the rock cycle, and
fossils.
The following content was taught in lessons #1 and #2:
- Landforms: Landforms are the natural shapes and features of land.
- Mountain: A mountain is a place on Earth’s surface that is much higher than the land
around it.
- Valley: A valley is a lowland area between higher lands such as mountains.
- Canyon: A canyon is a deep valley with very steep sides.
- Desert: A desert is a hot and dry place with little or no rainfall.
- Coast: A coast is the area where the ocean touches the land.
- Erosion:The process by which weathered material is moved by wind, water or ice.
Moving rock and sediment from one place to another.
The next six concepts were taught in lesson #3:
- Weathering: Describes the breaking down or dissolving of rocks and minerals on the
surface of the Earth.
- The Rock Cycle: The rock cycle is a concept used to explain how the three basic rock
types are related and how Earth processes, over geologic time, change a rock from one
type into another.
- Sedimentary rock: Sedimentary rocks are formed from pre-existing rocks or pieces of
once-living organisms. They form from deposits that accumulate on the Earth's surface.
Sedimentary rocks often have distinctive layering or bedding.
- Metamorphic rock:Metamorphic rocks were once igneous or sedimentary rocks, but
have been changed as a result of intense heat and/or pressure within the Earth's crust.
- Igneous rock:Igneous rocks are defined as types of rocks that are formed when molten
rock (rock liquefied by intense heat and pressure) cools to a solid-state.
- Molten rock: Magma refers to rock that has been melted. Molten rock can refer to:
Lava, molten rock above ground. Magma, molten rock underground.
The next three concepts were taught in lesson #4:

Fossil: A fossil is the preserved remains or impressions of a living organism such as a plant,
animal, or insect. Some fossils are very old. Studying fossils helps scientists to learn about the
past history of life on Earth.
Remains: The parts left over after other parts have been removed, used, or destroyed.
Organism: An individual animal, plant, or single-celled life form.

Key Vocabulary:

National Park: A national park is an area set aside by a country's government. Sometimes the
government already owns the land. ... Many national parks are created to preserve the natural
environment. Most of the landscapes, plants, and animals in a national park are kept in their
natural state.
Grand Canyon: The Grand Canyon is a massive canyon of red rock. At the bottom of the
canyon runs the Colorado River. The Grand Canyon is over 277 miles long and over 1 mile
deep. It is up to 18 miles wide and getting wider.
Appalachian Mountains: The Appalachian Mountains are a large group of North American
mountains. They are partly in Canada, but mostly in the United States.
Sahara Desert: The Sahara Desertis the most expansive, hot and largest desert on Earth. It is
located in Northern Africa nestled between the Mediterranean Sea in the North, the Atlantic
Ocean in the West and the Red Sea in the East.

Content/Facts:
● What are national parks?
○ National parks are areas set aside by a country's government. Sometimes the
government already owns the land. ... Many national parks are created to
preserve the natural environment. Most of the landscapes, plants, and animals
in a national park are kept in their natural state.
○ National parks are the home of many different famous landforms! Every year,
millions of people visit these national parks!
○ Some of the famous landforms that we will be exploring that are located in the
national parks are…
■ The Grand Canyon
■ The Appalachian Mountains
■ The Sahara Desert
● The Grand Canyon
○ A canyon is a deep valley with very steep sides
○ The Grand Canyon is located in Arizona and is a very famous landform!
○ The Grand Canyon is 277 miles long, in fact, it is larger than the state of Rhode
Island!
○ The Grand Canyon is also over 6,000 feet deep
○ Formed over six million years ago
○ Hidden caves can be found inside of the Grand Canyon
■ Caves are also landforms!
○ The Colorado River runs through the Grand Canyon, it has been eroding its
steep sides for millions of years.
● The Appalachian Mountains
○ A mountain is a place on Earth’s surface that is much higher than the land
around it.
○ The Appalachian Mountains is a famous landform that runs through many
different states such as Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West
Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut,
Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine.
■ In PA, you can hike part of the Appalachian Mountains, this is called
the Appalachian trail! Some places in PA where you can hike the
Appalachian trail are…
● Bushkill Falls
● Hawk Mountain
● The Lehigh Gap
● The Bake Oven Knob
■ All of these places are within one hour of us!
● The Sahara Desert
 ○ A desert is a hot and dry place with little or no rainfall.
○ The Sahara Desert is located in Africa.
○ The record high temperature of the Sahara was 136°F
○ Many dinosaur fossils have been found in the Sahara.

Introduction/Activating/Launch Strategies:
● The teacher will explain to the students that today we will be learning about some of
the different, famous landforms found across the world!
○ Some of these landforms are located in national parks throughout the world.
○ The teacher will introduce the famous landforms through videos that talk about
each different landform and their location in the national parks.
● 3 different landform videos to introduce some important facts about the famous
landform we will be discussing.
○ The Grand Canyon Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=oZZEJMtLOKU
○ The Appalachian Mountains Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=DeBMRP0M2xY
○ The Sahara Desert Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58UK5bM9adU
● These videos are examples of a few different famous landforms to introduce to the
students just to get them excited for the lesson.

Development/Teaching Approaches:
● Once the students have watched the videos, the teacher will ask the students to share
out some of the facts that they thought were the most interesting.
○ The students will first share in partners and will have three minutes to do this.
■ The students will be given whiteboards to write their facts on in the
groups.
○ The teacher will then call on one partner from each group of partners and they
will share their facts with the class.
■ The teacher will elaborate on each fact and will explain that we will be
going into further detail about each different famous landform today.
■ The whiteboards will then be collected.
● After the students have shared a few different facts that stood out to them the most in
the video, the teacher will then read a book about famous landforms in the United
States.
○ The book is called, “U.S Landforms (A True Book: The U.S regions) By: Dana
Meachen Rau.
○ The teacher will read the book through all the way to the end for the first time.
○ The second time, the students and teachers will create an anchor chart.
■ The anchor chart will be pre made, before the lesson.
■ The anchor chart will have information such as the location of the
national park and landforms mentioned in the story, and where they are
located on the map. This information will be covered with a sticky note
and as we come across it in the story, the teacher will refer to the anchor
chart, ask the question on the anchor chart, and will wait for the student
to respond to the question As the student answers the question, the
 teacher will uncover the sticky note from the anchor chart.
● Once the teacher has read the book twice and shared the interactive anchor chart with
the students, the teacher will share some information about a more local landform by
showing the students pictures of the smartboard.
○ While the pictures are on the smartboard the teacher will explain the content…
○ The Appalachian Mountains
■ A mountain is a place on Earth’s surface that is much higher than the
land around it.
■ The Appalachian Mountains is a famous landform that runs through
many different states such as Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee,
Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New
York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and
Maine.
● In PA, you can hike part of the Appalachian Mountains, this is
called the Appalachian trail! Some places in PA where you can
hike the Appalachian trail are…
○ Bushkill Falls
○ Hawk Mountain
○ The Lehigh Gap
○ The Bake Oven Knob
● All of these places are within one hour of us!
● Once the teacher has taught the students about a few different more local landforms,
the students will choose a landform in a national park and the students will create a
brochure to try and persuade people to visit the landform they are introducing!
○ The brochure can be about a landform located in a national park from the
videos we watched during the introduction, the book that we read, or the
appalachian mountains.
■ Once the students have decided which landform/national park location
of the landform that they chose, the teacher will create a paper with all
of the different landforms chosen by each student
○ The students must explain why this is the best landform/national park to visit
using the information provided below.
○ The brochure that the students will create will have information/characteristics
regarding the landforms’...
■ Location of the landform/national park
■ Type of landform
■ Climate the landform lives in
■ The height of the landform
■ The depth/width of the landform
■ When they were formed/ how long ago they were formed
■ Any interesting fun facts
● Such as activities that can be done in the landform, visitor
information, overall population, characteristics of the area.
■ Persuade people to want to visit this landform!
 ● The students will be finding this information to create their landform/national park
brochure using their resources such as
○ The videos that we watched at the beginning of class
○ The anchor chart that we created as a class
○ The book that we used to create the anchor chart
● The students will be given thirty minutes to complete the brochure.
● Once the students have completed the brochure, the brochures will be placed at each
students’ desk. As a class, the teacher and the students will walk around and read
everyone's brochure!
○ The teacher will have pre-created a “classroom walk” brochure information
sheet where the students will write two facts about each students’ brochure after
they are created.
■ This sheet will have the names of each different landform/national park
that each student chose to create their brochure about.
○ The students will walk around and fill out the sheet until they have visited all of
the different brochures.
○ The teacher will then collect the classroom walk brochure information sheet.
● Once the students have visited all of the brochures, the students will be asked to return
to their desks to fill out an exit slip.
○ The exit slip will ask the student, “If you could visit one of the landforms in the
national parks, which one would it be and why?”
■ The students can fill out the exit slip using the information they
recorded during the classroom brochure walk information sheet.

Closure/Summarizing Strategies:
● The teacher will tell the students that they did an awesome job today using their
science skills to learn about the different locations of famous landforms around the
world!
● The teacher will explain to the students that tomorrow, we will learn about a fun
project that will help to bring our unit to an end, a diorama or powerpoint creation!
● The teacher will tell the students to start thinking of their favorite landform that we
have learned about in the past week so that we can learn about how we will create the
diorama/powerpoint presentations on our favorite landforms!

Accommodations/Differentiation:
Follow all IEPs
● For a student who has an auditory disability, during the read aloud time, the teacher
will give the student headphones with a recording of the book so the student is able to
go back and re-listen to certain parts of the story they may have missed while the
teacher was reading.

Materials/Resources:

- (3) Introduction famous landform videos

- The Grand Canyon Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=oZZEJMtLOKU
 - The Appalachian Mountains Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=DeBMRP0M2xY
- The Sahara Desert Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=58UK5bM9adU
- “U.S Landforms (A True Book: The U.S regions) By: Dana Meachen Rau.
- APA citation: Rau, D. M. (2012). U.S. landforms. New York: Children's
Press.
- (25) whiteboards
- (25) markers
- (1) Anchor Chart paper
- (25) computers
- (25) Brochure papers
- (25) Brochure direction sheets
- Markers
- Pencils
- (25) classroom walk brochure information sheet
- (25) exit slips

Reflective Response:
Report of Student Learning Target/Objectives Proficiency Levels

Remediation Plan (if applicable)

Personal Reflection Questions

Additional reflection/thoughts:
Direction sheet for the Brochure students are creating:

Famous Landform Brochure Directions

Today you will be creating an informational brochure about one of the many famous
landforms that we have learned about during our lesson today. Your job is to
provide all of the information down below in your brochure while persuading the
reader to want to visit the specific landform you have chosen. Make sure to
include…

o Location of the landform/national park

● Description of the landform
o Type of landform
o Climate of the area
o The height of the landform
o The depth/width of the landform
o When they were formed/ how long ago the landform was formed
o Any interesting fun facts (3)
o Such as activities that can be done in the landform, visitor
information, overall population, characteristics of the area.

You may use any of the websites listed down below to research this information!
o https://www.nationalgeographic.org/activity/mapping-landforms/
o http://worldlandforms.com
o https://sciencing.com/important-landforms-7687175.html

Remember that you want to make the reader interested in the famous landform
and you want to make the reader want to visit the landform you are writing about!
Be sure to include all of the information above!

Example of the Brochure students will be creating:

http://theinspiredclassroom.blogspot.com/2011/10/state-brochure.html
 Ruric used for assessment scale: (Brochure rubric)
Name of the landform/Location of
the landform
Description/Characteristics
Size (Height/Width)
Timeline (When was the landform
formed/ how long ago was it
formed?)
Additional fun facts
Persuade
Advanced Proficient Basic
The student accurately The student provided The student did not
provided both the only the name or only provide either the name
name/location of the the location of the or location of the
chosen famous chosen famous chosen famous
landform on the landform on the landform on the
brochure. brochure brochure
The student was able The student was able to The student was able to
to identify and describe identify and describe identify and describe
three different two different one characteristic of the
characteristics of the characteristics of the famous landform.
famous landform. famous landform.
The student accurately The student accurately The student did not
provided the height provided only the provide any aspect of
and width of the height or only the width the size of the landform
famous landform. of the famous in the brochure.
landform.
The student provided a The student provided a The student did not
timeline as to when the timeline of either when provide either when the
landform was formed the landform was landform was formed or
or how long ago it was formed or how long how long ago it was
formed ago it was formed formed
The student provided The student provided The student provided
three fun facts about two fun facts about one fun fact about their
their chosen famous their chosen famous chosen famous
landform in the landform in the landform in the
brochure brochure brochure
The student uses strong The student uses good The student shows they
persuading language to persuading language to are experiencing
make the reader want make the reader want to difficulty using
to visit the area the visit the area the persuading language to
landform is in along landform is in along make the reader want to
with strong with good descriptions visit the area the
descriptions. landform is in along
with having difficulty
providing descriptions.