Education Standards
Lesson 1 - The Air All Around Us (word)
Lesson 2 - Impact of Air Pollution (doc)
Lesson 2 - Impact of Air Pollution (pdf)
Lesson 3 - Air Pollution in Our Community (pdf)
Lesson 3 - Air Pollution in Our Community (pdf)
Lesson 4 - Idling Vehicles Investigation (doc)
Lesson 4 - Idling Vehicles Investigation (pdf)
Lesson 5 - Defining the Problem (doc)
Lesson 5 - Defining the Problem (pdf)
Lesson 6 - Researching Possible Solutions (doc)
Lesson 6 - Researching Possible Solutions (pdf)
Lesson 7 - Making an Action Plan (doc)
Lesson 7 - Making an Action Plan (pdf)
Lesson 8 - Taking Action (doc)
Lesson 8 - Taking Action (pdf)
Lesson 9 - Sharing Our Work (doc)
Lesson 9 - Sharing Our Work (pdf)
Session 1 Details: 3-5 Climate Action Course (doc)
Session 1 Slide Deck: 3-5 Climate Action Course (Powerpoint)
Session 2 Details: 3-5 Climate Action Course (doc)
Session 2 Slide Deck 3-5 Climate Action Course
Session 3 Details: 3-5 Climate Action Course (doc)
Session 3 Slide Deck 3-5 Climate Action Course
Session 4 Details: 3-5 Climate Action Course (doc)
Session 4 Slide Deck 3-5 Action Course
Session 5 Details: 3-5 Climate Action Course (doc)
Session 5 Slide Deck 3-5 Climate Action Course
Community-Centered Climate Action Course (for 3-5 Educators)
Overview
This Professional Development course sets up teachers and students to use the perimeter of their school to inquire about and monitor air quality as well as learn about emissions and activism in their community.
Did you know idling cars during school pickup impacts air quality and the environment? Learn how to use an easy-to-implement action project to motivate and empower your students. Your students will build an understanding of how air pollution impacts their community and the climate and learn what community members are doing about it. They will then work together to map their findings, develop an action plan and share what they have learned.
Learn how the Next Generation Science Standards Engineering Design Process and Social Studies standards can be an integral part of students working on real-world problems.
Explore the social-emotional side of climate change and how direct action can foster resilience and environmental justice.
Collaborate with teachers from across the region to have a collective impact on air quality and the environment.
#climate science #islandwood (already searchable on text)
Slide Decks and Session Notes
This course was a delivered as professional development for teachers over 5 sessions. In this section are the slide decks and session notes for each. The three course themes (Local Climate Action, Engineering Solutions, and Equity & Justice) are discussed across all sessions, but the lessons used to model approaches to Climate-Centered action are focused on in different sessions as follows:
- Session 1 introduces Lesson 1
- Session 2 introduces Lessons 2-4
- Session 3 introduces Lessons 5-6
- Session 4 introduces Lessons 7-8
- Session 5 introduces Lesson 9
Lesson 1: The Air All Around Us
This introduction to our Air Quality Storyline starts student thinking about how air is important to people and animals and then focuses in on the air around the school. It is the first step in helping students to identify the problem’s created by Idling vehicles during the end of the day pick-up from school.
After a read aloud intended to get the students thinking about the importance of air, they will practice their observational skills with a short video showing forest fire smoke in the Puget Sound region. Then the students will go outside to focus their thinking on air quality at their school as they observe the area, think about any connections from their own knowledge/experiences and ask questions. Laster, students will come back together in the classroom to review their observations and represent their current understandings of the air quality at their school in an explanatory model.
NGSS Connections: Students will be using Asking Questions and Constructing Explanations in this lesson while thinking about cause and effect and systems and system models and beginning to think about how people impact environments. See the NGSS section at the end of this lesson for more detail
Lesson 2: The Impact of Air Pollution
Every being is connected to a larger network of beings. Every food web is part of an ecosystem that in turn is integral to a greater ecoregion. Their survival is tied to the quality of shared natural resources such as air.
In this lesson, students will be encouraged to reflect on the impact of air quality on humans, animals, and other natural resources. First, students will discuss the impact of air pollution on people, animals, natural resources, and the climate while participating in a class-wide read aloud of three book chapters. Then students will work in small groups using mind mapping and collaborative research methods. Each group will cover a book chapter, narrow down a topic using facts and exploring implications of air pollution impact. Students will then share with the whole class. All along, students will be encouraged to engage in personal Science journal writing and collaborative poster making, respectful discussion of challenging topics, as well as preparing and delivering class presentation that invites collective critical thinking and includes appreciative discussion of student efforts and findings.
Topic Target: All species co-exist in interconnected ecosystems. If one’s health or survival is affected, it has an impact on other species. Explore interspecies connections while remaining focused on fostering reflection on air quality.
Guiding Question: How does air pollution impact people, animals + plants, and the climate?
NGSS Connections: Students will be exploring how fossil fuels have an impact on nature, people, and climate.
Please see NGSS details in appendix below
Lesson 3: Air Pollution in Our Community
Air quality at your school can be made worse by idling vehicles and improved by plants. In this lesson, students will think about the pollution sources in your community and then zoom in to think about sources at your school. They will then go outside with a map of your schoolgrounds to locate where vehicles idle during student pick up time and where large plants are growing. They will also mark on the map any locations where you have hung air quality testers any birds or animals that they see along the way. The locations identified will be used to reinforce ideas introduced in Lesson 3 and decide on the location of next lesson’s investigation.
NGSS Connections: This lesson reinforces and makes local the Disciplinary Core Ideas and Crosscutting Concepts used in the previous lesson and then begins to move into Defining the Problem (as a step in an engineering design process). See the NGSS section at the end of this lesson for related standard and dimensions.
Lesson 4: Idling Vehicles Investigation
In this lesson, students will be gathering data about the numbers of idling cars and buses during the pickup time from school to answer the question of “How much air pollution is being produced by cars idling at our school?”
They will need to do this on three different days to make the investigation a “fair test.” To avoid biasing the results, it will also be important that drivers/parents not receive any communications about the efforts before or during the data gathering.
Students will then discuss any variables between the days and analyze the data to better understand the impact of the idling vehicles. This investigation also provides a baseline to which they can compare the effect of any intervention efforts they take on later in the storyline.
NGSS Connections: Students in this lesson will be using the Science and Engineering Practices of Designing and Conduction Investigations and Analyzing Data to find patterns and help determine the amount of pollution coming from cars idling at their school.
See Appendix 2 for more on the Dimensions involved.
Lesson 5: Defining the Problem
In this lesson students learn (or review) that engineering uses science and an Engineering Design Process to solve problems. And make their first steps into the process as they define the criteria for success and constraints that will help them choose the best possible approach to helping air quality at their school (in the next lesson).
Students also look at who impacts and is impacted by air quality as “stakeholders” who have something invested in what is done about the problem.
Focus Question: What do we need to know before we research solutions for our site?
Key Terms: engineering design process, criteria for success, constraints, stakeholder
NGSS Connections: In this lesson students will be directly applying the 3-5 Engineering Standard: 3-5-ETS1-1 “Define a simple design problem reflecting a need or a want that includes specified criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost.” See the NGSS details in the appendix below for a details on each dimension involved in that standard.
Lesson 6: Imagining and Researching Possible Solutions
Engineers research and imagine possible solutions before considering each in the context of their problem’s criteria and constraints and choosing a solution. In this lesson, students will use previous data and lesson materials to brainstorm climate action solutions in their community. They will:
- Consider potential air pollution solutions using what they have learned.
- Evaluate potential solutions by considering how they meet their constraints and criteria for success.
- Envision how to engage with stakeholders in action evaluation process.
- Create a proposal for their solution using their research.
- Choose a climate action plan that seeks to solve their problem.
In the big picture, this lesson includes a menu of project ideas ranging from creating an advocacy campaign to reduce idling, working to convince informing the community on the impact of car idling on humans and nonhuman beings, proposing a study of alternative methods of transportation to reduce the air quality impact of cars idling during school pickup including measurements of air pollution reduction after specific behavior changes occur.
Options are presented to review and may be used as an extension to your implementation in your classroom. Teachers are strongly encouraged to start the project selection process using previously gathered data and elevating students’ ideas. Modeling the review and evaluation of place-specific student-gathered data can help your class gain confidence in further developing their research question, address the community problem they are trying to solve, and choose data that can help build up their evidence and argument to advocate for their climate action project and implementation process as a class.
Researching possible solutions to air quality can get messy. It is important to keep revisiting the Climate Action project implementation plan to ensure the overall feasibility of the project. It seems crucial to model checking on criteria and project constraints throughout the project implementation. We suggest teachers remain willing to help students revise their project implementation timeline and action outcome depending on live student responses and ongoing students’ needs to foster their agency.
Please note that due to the collaborative nature of helping students come up with a place-based action project idea that they could implement, it will be important to keep in mind with students a realistic timeline (that will need to be revised further as the plan is developed and implemented in later lessons, the desired geographical radius for impact, and the budget for project implementation to ensure the climate action project is feasible for their class and school at that specific time during the school year.
Guiding Questions:
- What should we DO about air pollution in our community?
- Which solution will best meet our criteria and constraints?
NGSS Connections: In this lesson students will be using directly applying the 3-5 Engineering Standard: 3-5-ETS1-2 “Generate and compare multiple possible solutions to a problem based on how well each is likely to meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.” See the NGSS details in the appendix below for details on each dimension involved in that standard.
Lesson 7: Making an Action Plan
In Lesson 5 Students ASKED questions to define the problem they need to solve.
In Lesson 6 students IMAGINED ideas for what might help, then research possibilities others have tried and decide which of the ideas will best solve the problem.
In this lesson student will PLAN out their solution. This includes detailing the tasks involved in their plan, researching and talking to stakeholders to answer any questions that come up, and creating a list of the materials they will need for their tasks.
Guiding Question: What do we need to DO to make our solution happen?
NGSS Connections: Students will be continuing to use an Engineering Design Process and applying engineering disciplinary core ideas towards solving an engineering problem. See the NGSS details in the appendix below for details on each dimension involved in the lesson.
Lesson 8: Taking Action
Having developed an Action PLAN in the previous lesson, students will move in this lesson through the CREATE and IMPROVE stages in their Engineering Design Process.
Students will review their criteria for success to think about how they will know if their solution has succeeded and what they could do to gather information about it while they are taking action. Then they will follow their plan and measure their results before working on ways to improve or refine their efforts. If need and time exists they will make their changes and see if things improve.
Guiding Question(s): What is going well and what could we IMPROVE next time? How will we know?
NGSS Connections: Students will be continuing to use an Engineering Design Process and applying engineering disciplinary core ideas towards solving an engineering problem. See the NGSS details in the appendix below for details on each dimension involved in the lesson.
Lesson 9: Sharing Our Work
Sharing is an important part of engineering, and in this lesson students have the opportunity to SHARE about their work. The audience will depend on the project, your students, and the stakeholders involved in the project. The content will vary depending on what was accomplished but could include, learnings, efforts, results, suggestions for improvement and/or future proposals.
Guiding Question: What do we want to share about what we have done and who should we share it with?
NGSS Connections: Communication Information is an important skill for scientists and engineers and this shows up in the Obtaining, Evaluating and Community Science and Engineering Practice. See the NGSS details in the appendix below for details on each dimension involved in the lesson.