ELA Lesson: Green Transportation Opinion Writing
Lesson Plan
1 hourGrades5
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Written by Christa Delaney, Sustainable Jersey for Schools
About this lesson
Students learn about carbon emissions and form an opinion on the best way to reduce carbon emissions related to transportation in their community.
Inquire: Students explore how carbon emissions have changed over time.
Investigate: Students interview a familiar person to see what mode of transportation they use to move around their local area.
Inspire: Students take what they have learned about carbon emissions and transportation and create an opinion piece on the best type of transportation for their community.
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Everything you need to teach it
How to edit these materials (video)Teaching tips
Suggestions
- This lesson can be taught during a unit on opinion writing or developing opinions.
- This lesson can reinforce the skills of interviewing someone familiar to the student.
- This lesson can be taught in conjunction with a science lesson on carbon footprints.
- This lesson highlights the importance of green transportation methods.
- This lesson explores how people in the students' community move around their community.
- Teacher can use the the Inquire, Investigate, and Inspire worksheets in the Student Document as assessments.
- For further guidance on implementing the full unit, teachers can review the unit plan.
Prerequisites
- This is lesson 1 of 3 in our 5th grade Green Transportation: ELA Unit.
- Students should have a basic understanding of sentence structure specifically in paragraph form.
- Teachers may want to review proper interview etiquette or include a model or template for creating interview questions.
- Teachers should review resources in the lesson and prepare any needed support or scaffolding for reading and listening comprehension.
- Teachers should be aware that transportation methods may be a sensitive topic for some students.
- Teacher should coordinate with school staff members to find a convenient time for students to interview school staff for the activity in the Investigate section.
Differentiation
- Teachers can provide sentence starters for the opinion piece.
- Teachers can provide guidance for formatting the answers to the interview questions.
- If teachers have an established editing process in their classroom, students can engage in a round of self or peer feedback and rewriting.
- Early finishers can complete a carbon footprint worksheet.
From the scientist review
Students explore several green transportation options, conduct evidence-based research, gather strong facts and claims, and write a position statement on the most environmentally friendly, low-carbon modes of transportation that New Jersey should adopt in order to lessen its carbon footprint. After reviewing the lesson, we concluded that it met our standards for scientific credibility.
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About the teacher writers
Christa Delaney
Christa Delaney holds a Bachelor's Degree in Environmental Studies and Teacher Education from Richard Stockton College of New Jersey and a Professional Science Master's in Environmental Studies and Sustainability from Unity College. She has been teaching since 2005 and has 21 years of experience teaching Advanced Placement Environmental Science to grades 11–12. Christa is certified to teach Biological Science and specializes in environmental science and sustainability education.
Sustainable Jersey for Schools
Sustainable Jersey is a network and movement of municipalities, schools and school districts working collectively to bring about a sustainable New Jersey. Acting with state agencies, non-profit organizations, foundations, academia and industry, Sustainable Jersey researches best practices for what communities could and should do to contribute to a sustainable future.
