Title III Technology Literacy Challenge Grant

Learning Unit

LU Title: Neighbors and Neighborhoods, Authors: Sr. Catherine Giglio Diversity is the Spice of Life Linda Giovinazzo

School: Holy TrinityGrade Level: Primary Address: Lincoln Ave,

Utica, NY 13501Topic/Subject Area: Social Studies Phone: 315-724-0405

Overview

The theme of this unit is Neighbors and Neighborhoods – Diversity is the Spice of Life. The second grade will focus on communities. First they will learn about their own community. Then, they will gain a basic understanding about urban, rural and suburban communities throughout the state and country. The unit will look at some of the diversity between communities. The unit will take about three to four weeks to complete.

Content Knowledge

Declarative Procedural

1. Learn vocabulary words. 1. Use dictionary to look up vocabulary words.

2. Seek/find and listen to music. 2. Compare and contrast communities.

3. Identify characteristics of a 3. Graph with computer as a community. tool.

Essential Questions

What type of neighborhood do you live in and what features would your ideal community have?

Connections to NYS Learning Standards

Social Studies Standard 1: Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their understanding of major ideas, eras, themes, developments, and turning points in the history of the United States and New York

Key Idea: Important ideas, social and cultural values, beliefs, and traditions from New York State and United States history illustrate the connections and interactions of people and events across time and from a variety of perspectives.

Indicator: gather and organize information about the traditions transmitted by various groups living in their neighborhood and community

Indicator: recognize how traditions and practices were passed from one generation to the next

Social Studies Standard 3: Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their understanding of the geography of the interdependent world in which we live—local, national and global—including the distribution of people, places and environments over the Earth’s surface.

Key Idea: Geography can be divided into six essential elements which can be used to analyze important historic, geographic, economic, and environmental questions and issues. These six elements include: the world in spatial terms, places and regions, physical settings (including natural resources), human systems, environment and society, and the use of geography. (Adapted from The National Geography Standards, 1994: Geography for Life)

Indicator: study about how people live, work, and utilize natural resources

Indicator: draw maps and diagrams that serve as representations of places, physical features, and objects

Indicator: locate places within the local community, State, and nation;

locate the Earth’s continents in relation to each other and to principal parallels and meridians. (Adapted from National Geography Standards, 1994

Social Studies Standard 4: Students will use a variety of intellectual skills to demonstrate their understanding of how the United States and other societies develop economic systems and associated institutions to allocate scarce resources, how major decision-making units function in the U.S. and other national economies, and how an economy solves the scarcity problem through market and nonmarket mechanisms.

Key Idea: The study of economics requires an understanding of major economic concepts and systems, the principles of economic decision making, and the interdependence of economies and economic systems throughout the world.

Indicator: Know some ways individuals and groups attempt to satisfy their basic needs and wants by utilizing scarce resources.

Arts Standard 2: Students will be knowledgeable about and make use of the materials and resources available for participation in the arts in various roles (Visual).

Key Idea:  Students will know and use a variety of visual arts materials, techniques, and processes.

Indicator:  Students will understand the characteristics of various mediums in order to select those that are appropriate for their purposes and intent

Initiating Activity

The students will read, listen to and respond to stories and pictures of urban, suburban and rural areas. The students will view a video on the Amish community from Lancaster, PA. The students will use pictures to identify the difference between the communities.

Learning Experience #1

Graphing: Where Do We Live?

Use a computer to graph the communities we live in

Materials required:

Basic graphing Program

Activity:

Take a poll of the children and count how many live in each of rural, urban and suburban communities.

Review the different types of graphs with the children; bar, line, picture and circle.

Divide the class into four groups and assign each group one type of graph to complete.

Completed graphs will be discussed in-class and displayed in the classroom.

Learning Experience #2

This Music Makes Me Feel…

Children will listen to music from a variety of communities and write about how the music makes them feel.

Materials required:

CDs from various communitiesCD player or CD ROM computerBasic word processing softwarePrinter

Activity:

The teacher will play country and city music (Country, Jazz, Classical, Opera, etc.)

After playing each CD the children will write, using the word processor, about how each type of music makes them feel.

The teacher will lead them in a discussion comparing and contrasting the music using a Venn Diagram.

Learning Experience #3

Favorite Neighborhood

Students will make a collage of their favorite neighborhood

Materials required:

Pictures of different communitiesConstruction paperGlue/scissorsMarkers

Activity:

Students will cut out pictures from magazines and other publications and glue them on construction paper forming their favorite neighborhood. Completed projects will be displayed in the classroom.

Learning Experience #4

View from above

Students will view satellite photos from the internet and identify the three main types of communities.

Materials required:

InternetSatellite worksheet

Activity:

The teacher will guide children in looking up satellite images of each type of community. Students will fill out a worksheet while looking at the different images. The worksheet will help them identify landforms, which will in turn help them to identify which community is which. (See Appendix B for satellite worksheet)

Learning Experience #5

Mapping a Neighborhood

Students will design their own community using map drawing software.

Materials required:

Basic Map Drawing Software

Activity:

Assign half of the students to draw a map of a typical city neighborhood and the other half to draw a neighborhood without electricity, cars and highways.

After completing the maps, discuss the challenges they had designing their respective communities. Discuss the challenges and benefits to the people living in them.

Culminating Experience

Build Your Own Neighborhood

Each student will build their own neighborhood as creatively as home materials allow.

Materials required:

Any materials available to the student at homePossibilities include:Egg and milk cartonsConstruction paperGlueTapePipe CleanersCotton CardboardPopsicle sticks

Activity:

Students will build their neighborhood, at home, as creatively as possible. Students will be required to turn in a report about their neighborhood. The report will require them to draw on the information they have learned throughout the unit and apply it to the neighborhood that they have built. (See Appendix C for report details)

Prerequisite Skills

1. Students will be familiar with basic word processor (Claris Works, Microsoft Works, Word) and basic computer operations.

2. Student will be exposed to graphing prior to the unit.

Modifications

1. Traditional dictionaries could be used to look up vocabulary words if CD ROM dictionary is not available.

2. Drawing paper could be used for map drawings if students do not have access to a computer-mapping program.

3. If internet is not available, the students can compare regular street maps instead of satellite photos.

Unit Schedule/Time Plan

The time plan will be about three to four weeks and if possible, it should be coordinated with the computer teacher. The classroom teacher will take the time to research and gather material the children will need. The parents and children will also be involved in gathering material. Free time, social studies time and computer time will be used to read/listen and look up some of the material. The children will use their time at the computer to research some of the information with the help of the computer teacher.

Technology Integration

Internet – The internet will be used to research key words and different types of communities.

Word Processing Software- Will be used to record feelings and ideas about different types of music, as well as to write their reports.

Basic Map Drawing Software – Will be used to allow students to map communities.

Dictionary on CD – Students will look up vocabulary words on this dictionary

Music CDs - Students will listen to several different songs representing different types of music

Video – Students will view a video about the Amish community.

Reflection

This unit was fun to teach and the students seemed to enjoy the wide variety of experiences included in the unit. The students interacted well with each other during the group experiences and gave thoughtful responses to questions raised throughout.

The music and satellite experiences were my favorites and seemed also to be favored by many of the students. They enjoyed spreading out in the room and giving creative response to the assignments.

The computer mapping assignment was one of the most difficult for the students and made selecting groups an important component to the success of this experience.

This was a good unit to use at the end of the year because the children seemed to like the change in routine and had the confidence to work with other students on assignments without definitive answers.

Appendix A

Vocabulary

aerial view graphs neighborbar

city line neighborhoodscircle

communities picture rural

crops groups satellite

customs landforms suburb

globe laws town

glossary lumber urban

Appendix B

Satellite Worksheet

Satellite Photographs: City, Suburban and Rural

1. Which picture has the largest shapes?____________________________

2. What shapes do you think represent buildings__________, roads_______,

water__________? What other shapes do you see?

__________________________________________________________

3. Which picture has the most roads?_______________________________

4. Which picture has the most buildings?____________________________

5. Which picture has the most farm land?____________________________

6. Which picture looks the busiest?_________________________________

7. Which picture do you think is the city?_________ Why?_____________

8. Which picture do you think is the suburb?_________ Why?___________

9. Which picture do you think is the rural area?_________ Why?_________

10. How are these satellite photographs different than a street map?_______

Appendix C

Community Report

Write a report about the community you built. Include the type of community (city, suburb, or country) and what makes it that type.

Describe the landforms, buildings and other structures that are in your community.

Tell how a satellite picture of your community would be different than a street map.

What kind of music would you associate with this community and why?

What did you like about the community that you built? Why? What would you do to improve your community?

Appendix D

Rubric for Culminating Activity

Community Report and ProjectPoint Checklist

1. Report included community type and what makes it that type (2 points) _____

2. Landforms, buildings and other structures were described (1 point) _____

3. Community was compared to satellite pictures (1 point) _____4. Music was described for community (1 point) _____5. Described why you like your community (1 point) _____6. Described what you would change about your community

(1 point) _____7. Report was completed on time (1 point) _____8. Report was completed using good grammar and punctuation (1 point) _____9. Community project was turned in on time (1 point) _____

Scoring

Points Grade9-10 Excellent8 Very Good7 Good5-6 Satisfactory4 & below Unsatisfactory

Appendix E

Resources

Amish video Award wining PBS documentary, The Amish, A People of

Preservation

Map program Make a Map, Sunburst, Houghton Mifflin Company, Pleasantville,

NY 1999

CDs used for music experienceArmstrong, Louis, Boogie WoogieBocelli, Andrea, Di Quella Pira, “Verdi” Phillips/Universal Classics,2000.Church, Charlotte, Ave Maria, “Voice of An Angel” Sony 1998.Denver, John, Country Roads, “John Denver’s Greatest Hits” RCA 1988Gillman, Billy, One Voice, “One Voice” Sony Music Entertainment Inc, 2000. Epic

Word processing program Claris Works

Satellite Websitehttp://terraserver.Homeadviser.msn.com

CD ROM DictionaryUltimate Children’s Encyclopedia, The Learning Company, SoftKey Media Inc. 1996

Microsoft Bookshelf 98, Reference Library, Microsoft Corporation 1987-1997

Graphing programThe Graph Club, Tom Snyder Productions, Inc. 1996.