Cluster 3: Integration of Knowledge and IdeasArchived

Zora Neale Hurston is most often remembered as a gifted novelist with a knack for capturing the essence of the lives of rural Southerners, especially in Florida. She was also, however, a folklorist who helped the Federal Writers’ Project document the lives and traditions of African-Americans during the Great Depression. Hurston’s work has been instrumental in writing the history of African-American individuals and communities. In this lesson students will listen to a track lining song that was collected by Zora Neale Hurston to write brief journal responses to the audio recording.

Type: Lesson Plan

The Seminoles were part of the economic and cultural development of the Florida frontier. The decline of the hide trade followed by the Great Depression forced Seminoles to seek alternative sources of income.

Beginning in the 1910s, some Seminole families worked at tourist villages along the Tamiami Trail and other highways. Visitors could walk through the villages to learn what daily life was like for the Seminoles. When tourist season ended each year, the families would return to their real homes.

In this lesson students view photographs of Seminole dolls to compare the hairstyles, beadwork and patchwork clothing of the dolls to those of the Seminoles. Students will also be able to describe the historic significance of Seminole dolls in the culture and economy.

Type: Lesson Plan

In the interview, longtime net maker and Fernandina resident Billy Burbank III discusses the history and practices of the net making trade. Conducted by folklorist Peggy Bulger in July 1980, the interview begins with Burbank describing how his grandfather began the family business, Burbank Trawl Makers Inc., in 1915.

In this lesson, students will listen to the interview with Billy Burbank III. As they listen, they will complete a Sound Recording Analysis Worksheet from the National Archives and Records Administration. They will then discuss their findings.

Type: Lesson Plan

The Rough Riders went to Tampa at the end of May. On June 13, they left Tampa to fight in Cuba. Two years after the end of the war, Roosevelt went on to become the 26th president of the United States. In this lesson students analyze photographs to learn about the Rough Riders in Florida.

Type: Lesson Plan

The most famous of the African-American soldiers to fight in the Spanish-American War were known as the "Buffalo Soldiers." They were the first peacetime all-black regiments in the regular U.S. Army. The four regiments, the 9th and 10th Cavalries and the 24th and 25th Infantries, were created by Congress just after the American Civil War. Students will learn about "Buffalo Soldiers" through analysis of photographs.

Type: Lesson Plan

With the seemingly limitless supply of salt available to us today, it is hard to imagine the hardship imposed by its lack. The Confederate army's meat supply was preserved with salt. With the Union blockade in place, the Confederate states turned to local sources for this important mineral. Salt production became a crucial endeavor for citizens of Florida. In this lesson students will compare Confederate and Union perspectives of the salt works using an illustration, a letter and an excerpt from a memoir.

Type: Lesson Plan

The students will use mathematical skills and problem solving skills to recommend which current starting pitcher will be replaced once one of the pitchers is back on the active roster for the Miami Marlins. They will write a letter on the computer and print it out to respond to the assistant coach's letter.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

This Model Eliciting Activity is written at a 4th grade level. In this open-ended problem, students must consider how to rank potting soil based on factors like fraction of ingredients, price, and eco-friendliness. In teams, students determine their procedures and write letters back to the client.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. MEAs resemble engineering problems and encourage students to create solutions in the form of mathematical and scientific models. Students work in teams to apply their knowledge of science and mathematics to solve an open-ended problem, while considering constraints and tradeoffs. Students integrate their ELA skills into MEAs as they are asked to clearly document their thought process. MEAs follow a problem-based, student centered approach to learning, where students are encouraged to grapple with the problem while the teacher acts as a facilitator. To learn more about MEA’s visit: https://www.cpalms.org/cpalms/mea.aspx

Type: Lesson Plan

Students are asked to help their client select the "best" asteroid to explore given several different factors. Students collaborate in small groups to develop a procedure to rate the asteroids. They are then asked to write a letter back to the client, defending and explaining the procedure they developed. This MEA has been written based on NASA's current mission to explore an asteroid to prepare for the mission to Mars.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

This Model Eliciting Activity (MEA) is written at a 4th grade level. In this open-ended problem, students are presented with a variety of natural resources found in Florida, a description of the resources, and the advantages/disadvantages of each. Students must consider which resources are both environmentally friendly and beneficial to our society. Students will describe their procedures for reasoning, and defend their decisions by providing proper validation.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

Professional Partiers, Inc. is having a difficult time setting a date for a client's Halloween party. The client has specific criteria they like would to have included in deciding on a good date. This project will familiarize students with the phases of the moon. It allows students an opportunity to interpret data from charts and collaborate with one another to provide a thoughtful written response for the company.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson will provide an in depth look at informational text that is heavy with graphic features and links science to reading. By the completion of the lesson, the students will have studied the text features and text structure of an informational text. They will use information provided to explain an author’s claim.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will learn about the history of the women's suffrage movement and what it took for women in America to get the right to vote. Throughout the lesson, the teacher and students will look at primary sources such as pictures and original documents, as well as videos about the movement and a PowerPoint to help build students' background knowledge. Then students and the teacher will work through a Reader's Theatre script called "Failure is Impossible" that describes the evolution of the Women's Suffrage Movement. Text-dependent questions for the script have been included. At the end of the lesson, students will work in groups to complete a timeline (an answer key is included) and then individually write an opinion piece on this topic. A rubric is provided to help teachers assess students' writing.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will take notes about the Everglades using a variety of resources. Students will identify appropriate text features that can be used to convey information. As a final product, students will practice their expository writing by creating an informational brochure about the Everglades that uses the description text structure and multiple text features.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will learn how to analyze primary documents and discover facets of Native American life by analyzing images of a variety of Native American villages. After careful analysis, students will write an expository paragraph based on a text-dependent question.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this 4th grade MEA, students will work in groups to develop a procedure to rank which insect would be the best bug to farm for human consumption in the USA. Students will consider factors such as nutritional value, length of insect life cycle, stage of life cycle the insect can be served, notes from chefs, customer tasting notes, level of difficulty to farm, and price. This MEA allows students to apply scientific content, metamorphosis, in a real world application, while developing high-level problem solving skills.

Type: Lesson Plan

The governor of Florida needs your students' help in distributing funds among Florida cities. Students will be asked to share a sum of money for hurricane preparedness systems among Florida cities. Students will be given a data set to help them develop a procedure for doing so. In their teams, they will write a letter to the governor of Florida giving their procedures and explanation of the strategy they used. Rubrics are included to help grade students on their writing.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, 4th grade students read and discuss to determine differences and similarities between machines that transfer energy from renewable natural resources: water (hydro) and air (wind). This lesson also includes independent access point for this standard.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will use resources from the classroom and the school media center to conduct research on a topic of their choosing. Students will then plan and draft an expository essay using their research as their sources. Their research will become the evidence that is cited in their text and what they use to inform their readers on their topic. Students will confer with classmates on expository planning and construction, and will give, as well as receive, critical feedback to other students to help them make their writing better.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will use news magazines and articles to identify text features and explain how the text features contribute to their understanding of the informational text.

Type: Lesson Plan

The goal of this two to three day exemplar is to give students the opportunity to use the reading and writing habits they've been practicing on a regular basis to absorb deep lessons from Richard Feynman's recollections of interactions with his father. By reading and rereading the passage closely, and focusing their reading through a series of questions and discussion about the text, students will identify how and why Feynman started to look at the world through the eyes of a scientist. When combined with writing about the passage, students will discover how much they can learn from a memoir.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson demonstrates how the earth rotates creating nights and days. It also demonstrates the revolution of the earth around the sun. The earth and the sun's movements are connected.

Type: Lesson Plan

This Engineering Design Challenge is intended to help fourth grade students apply the concepts of the flow of heat from a hot object to a cold object and that heat flow may cause objects to change temperature. It is not intended as an initial introduction to this benchmark.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will use a compare and contrast chart (graphic organizer) to compare and contrast the different properties of matter – color, hardness, texture, odor, and taste. Students will also demonstrate the science concepts learned from reading informational text passages on the properties of matter.

Type: Lesson Plan

Learn about the weather and informational text features with Sunny! In this interactive tutorial, you'll explore tables, graphs, diagrams, and timelines. You’ll also be able to explain how information from these text features helps you understand the text.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Analyze information in non-fiction passages about rocks. In this interactive tutorial, you’ll integrate information from two texts to write about the subject. It’s going to rock!

Type: Original Student Tutorial

In this activity, students will locate text features and explain how they help the reader understand the text.

Type: Student Center Activity

Students will discover similarities and differences in the lifestyles and geography of their home state and another culture of various peoples.This lesson idea is specifically designed for students in Utah, but could be easily adapted for other states.

Type: Teaching Idea

In this unit, students will learn about the Civil Rights Movement through the perspective of Ruby Bridges, a young girl caught in the struggle for equality during this time. Vocabulary strategies, slideshows, graphic organizers, and text-based questions are all included to help students compare/contrast Ruby's world with their own.

Type: Unit/Lesson Sequence