Deforestation in Brazil

Lesson Focus and Instructional Purpose

Cross Disciplinary Themes Addressed

Deforestation and Poverty in Brazil

Unifying Essential Question(s)

How should we balance economic and environmental needs?

Subject Area Question(s)

Collaborative Learning Objective(s)

Students will be able to analyze the economic, environmental and political causes and effects of deforestation in Brazil.

Subject Area Learning Objectives

Standards Addressed

Close Reading Text Set

Anchor Text

UN Climate Summit New York Declaration on Forests

Supporting Texts

Organized Text Set

Student Activities and Tasks

Text-Dependent Questions

How has the rate of deforestation in Brazil changed over time? Without intervention, how will it likely grow in the future?

What are the major goals of the New York Plan? What action is Brazil expected to take?

Where is poverty most concentrated in Brazil?


What actions has the Brazilian government already taken to decrease deforestation?

What economic impact do the ranching, logging and agribusinesses have on the Brazilian economy?

Why is deforestation occurring in Brazil? What are the economic intensive for deforesting the Amazon?

Formative Assessment Strategies and Tasks

On a daily bases during this unit, students will be looking at texts in order to answer the text-based questions and prepare them for their final persuasive paragraph. Students will be answering text-based questions in a folder on Google Drive that all their teachers will have access to. In this way, the social students, English and math teachers can all monitor the students' progress the unit.

Culminating Assessment

Having studied the causes and effects of deforestation and poverty in Brazil, and reading excerpts from several texts that both support and negate Brazil signing the UN New York Declaration on forests, students will
1. Identify which texts support and negate signing the document, determine textual evidence that supports their answer, and analyze this evidence
2. Choose two graphs/tables that they created in Algebra class and add them to their DBQ (document based questions) packet from social studies class.
3. After identifying evidence from the DBQ, students will be assigned a stance for the question: Should Brazil have signed the New York Declaration on Deforestation
4. Students will write a persuasive essay in which they state their claim, and use their textual evidence and analysis from DBQ packet to support their position
5. Students will create and record a presentation outlining their claim and arguments used in their essay.
6. Students will pair up with peer producing opposite claim; they will watch presentation and produce a counterargument to one of opponents claims using textual evidence

Background Knowledge and Prerequisite Skills

Pre-requisite Learning

1. Students should be somewhat skilled in their ability to comprehend complex text, using skills of chucking, annotating, re-reading and using online translation websites
2. Students, through prior lessons, will have a basic understanding of the causes and effects of climate change
3. Students will have basic understanding of role of government when it comes to decision making
4. Students will have basic knowledge about the causes of poverty in Brazil
5. Through the previous English unit, students will have a general understanding of the connection between deforestation and global warming
6. Student should be familiar with creating a line of "best fit"
7. Students can use multiple representations (Graph, Table and equation)
8. Students can use Slope and Y-Intercept to create an equation.
9. Students should be familiar with the basic paragraph essay structure, and can write essays with appropriate scaffolds
10. Students will be familiar and have practiced writing different Levels of Questions using text

Pre-assessment of Readiness for Learning

This unit is focused on the ability to comprehend complex text, identify evidence and explain how this evidence supports a particular position. In the previous English unit, students wrote an essay about the effects of global warming on the planet, allowing the teacher to assess their ability to appropriately incorporate textual evidence into paragraphs. When the students are divided into different positions (for and against signing the New York Declaration on Forests) students who struggled with the previous essay were assigned the "support" position. The documents from the DBQ that supported the signing were somewhat easier to comprehend. Students who excelled in the previous essay and needed an additional push were assigned the "negate" position, allowing them a change to push themselves with more complex text.

Organization of Instructional Activities

NOTE: This unit is designed for ELL students in ELD 2. The majority of them arrived to the United States in the beginning of the school year. Therefore, all activities are heavily scaffolded to support their language needs.

Prior to this unit students developed background knowledge on the country of Brazil in their Social Studies class. They learned about the ethnic groups and a quick overview of Brazil's history, via notes, text, and group activities. All context was built with the goal of understanding the causes of the present conditions of poverty and deforestation that exist in the country today.

In Social Studies, students will begin by looking at modern poverty in Brazil, specifically comparing the conditions that exist in both rural and urban poverty. We access prior knowledge by defining poverty in their own words, students write one to two sentences on their Do Now sheet, and share with a partner, then the class as a whole, teacher creates list of. Students then read and annotate the scaffolded (teacher rewrote in simpler terms) article "Rural Poverty in Brazil" - the annotating process involves students 1. Chunking/dividing the Reading, 2. Identifying and translating unknown words, 3. Writing one-two sentence summary (can be in home language), 4. Asking a question about the reading, 5. Connecting prior knowledge (This reminds me of..), and 6. Expressing an opinion (This is good/bad because..). After reading students share out summaries, questions, connections, and opinions in groups to assure understanding. This takes an entire block-class period (90 minutes).

The following block class, the Do Now asks students to write one thing they learned about rural poverty in Brazil. Teacher explains students will now look at urban poverty in Brazil. Students watch two videos on netbooks with subtitles, both are feature stories from Journeyman Productions one "Walls in Rios" describes the government displacement of Rio's poor favelas to protect the environment, and the other "Brazil's World Cup - Running over the Poor" describes the Brazilian government's financial neglect of Brazil's poor, while spending billions on World Cup preparations. Students then complete a check for understanding worksheet and develop questions about urban poverty and government responsibility.

On the third block day, students answer the question: Does government have the duty to help the poor? Why or why not? Students are asked to write 3-4 sentences explaining their thinking. Teacher gives 10-15 minutes to think and write. Students share out answers with their groups, then the class. After, teacher explains to students the project they will be completing. Students will understand that they are going to act as representatives of the Brazilian government and look at evidence to decide what is best to do for their country and their people. Students are then asked to take out their Leveled Questions on urban poverty. In groups students will create 5 Level One, 5 Level Two, and 3 Level Three questions they believe the government needs answered in order to come to an informed decision on whether or not to sign the NY Plan on Deforestation. Students develop the questions using the background knowledge built in both their English and Social Studies classes. Students write their questions on poster paper (30-40 minutes). After the class participates in a gallery walk, placing a star next to the 5 questions they are most interested in researching or finding out more about. Teacher determines 5 top class questions and students volunteer to explain why they think that is important to come to an informed conclusion.

In English class, students will begin learning more background knowledge about deforestation. Students will be shown a powerpoint that defines deforestation with words and images, and will view "before and after" images of deforestation in the Amazon. They will be taught content specific vocabulary (deforestation, cattle, crops, clear-cutting, livestock, developing country, logging, slash and burn, timber, extract, expand) Students will demonstrate their knowledge of this vocabulary through creating images and a pair-share activity where students use the vocabulary in complete sentences.

To build more background, students will read part of a text called "Causes of Deforestation: Direct Causes." Before reading, students will skim the text in groups and highlight the vocabulary words that have previously been taught. Next, students will identify three unknown words in each paragraph, and use online translation to define the new words. For the first paragraph of the text, the teacher will model how to paraphrase two sentences. For the rest of the text, students will paraphrase sentences in groups and individually, and will answer questions to demonstrate their understanding of the text. In the next class, students will summarize the entire text in groups of four.

Next, students will read the Summary section of the New York Declaration on Forests. The teacher will divide this section into chunks, and provide a notes page with an EL student-friendly explanation of 5-7 vocabulary words for each chunk. Here is an example of the vocabulary from the first paragraph:
Essential – necessary
Terrestrial biodiversity: different types of plants and animals
Safeguarding: protecting
Yet: but
Often: almost always
Devastating impacts: very bad effects
The conversion of forests for the production of commodities: changing forests to from natural places to places where you can make things for sale

Students will read the text in groups, and will answer text-based questions for each chunk. Finally, the "outcomes" section of the document will be divided so that each group examines two outcomes. In groups of 3-4 students will paraphrase their section and create an image to represent the outcomes that they learned about. Students will then present their paraphrase/image to the class.

Next, in Social Studies: teachers develop GoogleDoc Document Based Question. Teacher combines resources featured on Text Set and graphs made in Algebra; choosing excerpts students can use as evidence for their essay and presentation. Students look at the evidence and answer the following for each document: 1. Author(s); 2. Date; 3. Title; 4.Summary: What information did you learn from this source?;
5. Does this source support or negate Brazil signing the UN Anti-Deforestation plan?; 6. Provide a quote or fact from the document to support your answer; 7. Analysis: explain how the quote supports the answer to the question (use one of the prompts)
This example demonstrates…
This quote shows…

In Algebra Class
Day 1: History/Making Sense of the Data (What does it mean?)
Re-inform students using “Brazil: Amazon Rain forest Destruction Rate’ Up by 29%” article about what they have learned in History and English class.

Use “Calculating Deforestation Figured for the Amazon” to allow students to look at the data and interpret its significance. They will be doing this by talking with one another about their initial thoughts and finding trends in the data. Student will begin to make conjectures.

Day 2: Multiple Representations (Graphing, Table, Equation)
Students will decide which years of data they will include in their data set and how they will represent (Years vs Annual Forest Loss) and (Years vs Estimated Remaining Forest Cover in the Brazilian Amazon)?

Using a line of best fit, create an equation to find out when there will be no more Amazon Forest in Brazil if the average rate of annual forest loss continues.

At this rate, what will happen to the Amazon? Students will use the average loss but still understand that the rate of deforestation has dramatically decreased but is beginning to rise again

Day 3: Graphic Design (Final Product)
Use the graphic design app “youidraw” to create a final product depicting the decline in forest
Student use the app using Chromebooks, to create an artistic representation of the data to help their arguments.

Next, In English class, students will write their essay. They will be provided with a scaffold that gives them sections to fill out the following:

Introduction Paragraph
-Hook
-Background: What is the New York Declaration on Forests? Did Brazil sign it?
-Thesis: Should Brazil have signed the New York Declaration on Forests?

Body Paragraphs (3 in total)
-Topic Sentence
-Evidence: According to an article titled, _____ by _____, "_______"
-Analysis:

Conclusion Paragraph
-Re-state thesis
-Call to Action

Students will use the evidence/analysis that they gathered from the DBQ to write their essay. Because most of the difficult work of gathering evidence/analysis has already been done in their social studies class, the English teacher will have time to check individual students' work while the class fills out their information from the DBQ onto the essay scaffold.

Students will use their essay to create a presentation with 6 slides. Slide 1: Title Page; Slide 2: What is the Plan? ; Slide 3: Stance on the plan; Slide 4-6: 3 claims, evidence, and analysis. Students will then record their presentations using the app Screencast'o'matic and share their presentation with a partner who has the opposite stance. Students will watch partner's presentation and choose one claim they want to refute. They will then add a final slide to their argument, stating their opponents claim, and using evidence to refute the claim.