Last updated: September 26, 2019
Lesson Plan
Researching Prairie Restoration
- Grade Level:
- Middle School: Sixth Grade through Eighth Grade
- Subject:
- Literacy and Language Arts,Science
- Lesson Duration:
- 90 Minutes
- Common Core Standards:
- 6-8.RST.4, 6.SL.1, 6.SL.1.b, 6.SL.1.c, 6.SL.1.d, 7.SL.1, 7.SL.1.b, 7.SL.1.c, 7.SL.1.d, 8.SL.1, 8.SL.1.b, 8.SL.1.c, 8.SL.1.d, 6.W.1, 6.W.1.a, 6.W.1.b, 6.W.1.c, 6.W.1.d, 6.W.1.e, 6.W.7, 6.W.8, 7.W.1, 7.W.1.a, 7.W.1.b, 7.W.1.c, 7.W.1.d, 7.W.1.e, 7.W.6, 7.W.7, 8.W.1, 8.W.1.a, 8.W.1.b, 8.W.1.c, 8.W.1.d, 8.W.1.e, 8.W.6
- State Standards:
- Next Generation Science Standards: MS-LS2-1; MS-LS2-2; MS-LS2-3; MS-LS2-4; MS-LS2-5; Human Impacts-MS-ESS3-4.
- Thinking Skills:
- Remembering: Recalling or recognizing information ideas, and principles. Understanding: Understand the main idea of material heard, viewed, or read. Interpret or summarize the ideas in own words. Applying: Apply an abstract idea in a concrete situation to solve a problem or relate it to a prior experience. Analyzing: Break down a concept or idea into parts and show the relationships among the parts. Creating: Bring together parts (elements, compounds) of knowledge to form a whole and build relationships for NEW situations. Evaluating: Make informed judgements about the value of ideas or materials. Use standards and criteria to support opinions and views.
Essential Question
What are the benefits of restoring our endangered prairie ecosystem?
Objective
1. Students will respond appropriately to comprehension questions while watching a short video.
2. Students will utilize the video and technology to conduct a short research product.
3. Students will discuss and collaborate with peers effectively to form an educated opinion about a topic.
4. Students will write at least 2 arguments that support their opinion with relevant evidence.
Background
Prairie restoration is a priority at Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site. North American prairie ecosystems used to cover 1.4 million square miles of land. Now (2019) it is only a small fraction of what it used to be. Knife River Indian Villages NHS follows a prairie management plan to bring back the native prairies the Hidatsa tribe used readily during village life. This restoration includes prescision herbicide spraying, annual prescribed burns on rotating plots of land in the park, and active reseeding of native plants. The park uses mowing in lieu of grazing by large animals. These consistent and timely efforts are slowly changing the landscape of this national historic site.
Preparation
- Explore the web and record example sites on which students can research their concept. This is an important step to help students learn the research process and how to find relevant information on the internet.
- Read through the lesson. Prepare any mini-lessons your students may need in conjunction with their research. Some examples of mini-lessons could be avoiding plagarism, using fillable forms, reading a website for information, finding appropriate images on the web, and correctly citing references and images.
- Decide if this lesson will be done entirely through technology using the fillable forms. If so, send your students the link to the documents. If not, print out enough copies of the video comprehension and research pages for every student.
- Write the 5 concepts (benefits of prairies) on separate strips of paper. Fold up the papers and put in a hat. Students will choose their concept by pulling a paper from the hat. The benefits of prairies are biodiversity, erosion prevention, better water quality, promotes education about our natural heritage, and creates healthier, sustainable land uses.
Materials
This is an accessible fillable form. It can also be printed and handed out to the students.
Download Prairie Restoration Video Review
This is an accessible fillable form. It can also be printed and handed out to the students.
Download Prairie Restoration Benefits
Lesson Hook/Preview
Ask students what life would be like without prairies. Show of hands how many students think a prairie is important to their life. Have a few students who raised their hand share why it is important to them. Have a few students who didn't raise their hand share why it isn't important to them.
Introduce the NPS video. Challenge the students to look for evidence that supports their claim about prairie benefits through the video and internet research.
Procedure
- Pass out the Prairie Restoration video review paper or link to the document. (Document is in the materials section.)
- Watch the online NPS video Prairie Restoration. (Video is less than 8 minutes.)
- Stop the video at appropriate times to ask guiding questions and to allow students to write their answers on the review paper.
- Review the vocabulary words. (listed in the vocabulary section)
- Divide the class into 5 groups. A member of each group chooses a concept out of a hat. The concepts are benefits of prairies. These are biodiversity, erosion prevention, better water quality, promotes education about our natural heritage, and creates healthier, sustainable land uses.
- Pass out one Prairie Restoration Benefits paper or link to each group. The group writes their concept on #1. (Document is in the materials section.)
- Instruct students to start with the websites you wrote on the board (or passed out to them) to complete their assignment. Explain why you chose the websites you did. Students can find other websites if they meet the same criteria outlined by the teacher.
- Provide mini-lessons on different research or technology skills as needed for your class.
- When groups are finished, they take turns sharing their concept of prairie benefits. They explain why this benefit is or is not important to their lives and how it supports (or does not support) prairie restoration.
Vocabulary
- Prairie - A large, open, and mostly flat area of grasses and forbs. They are categorized as short grass, tall grass, or mixed grass.
- Ecosystem - A biological community of interconnected organisms in a physical environment
- Benefits - An advantage or positive gain from something
- Prescribed - Something authorized and controlled (like a prescribed burn)
- Erosion - The gradual destruction of something (like soil by wind, water, or other natural agents)
- Native - Something or someone who is connected to a place since its beginning (like plants that have always grown in a region)
- Non-Native/Invasive - Something or someone who moved into a place (like plants that were planted in an area by people)
Assessment Materials
How well did the students meet the objectives?A rubric is a great way to determine if the objectives were met. The following statements are suggestions for rubric grading categories. Add more as appropriate to your students and your selected mini-lessons.
- Correctly answered the review questions for the video.
- Investigated the group's concept by using appropriate websites. (Recommendation for a top score is at least 2 websites.
- Correctly interpreted the information on the websites and used it appropriately to answer the questions on the Prairie Restoration Benefits paper.
- Formulated and supported an opinion about the concept (prairie benefit). (Recommendation for a top score is a strong opinion statement with at least 2 supporting arguments.)
- Worked cooperatively in a group.
Supports for Struggling Learners
Providing websites to the student groups ahead of time is a big support for students who are new to research or who struggle with reading. You can choose the sites that are an appropriate reading level for your students.
Enrichment Activities
Students can use this research assignment to, then, write an opinon paper. As a class, create a graphic organizer on the board. Ask each group to write their concept in the appropriate place on the organizer with at least 2 supporting facts. When it is done, the students can write an opinion paper with an introduction, body, and conclusion. Each concept is a different paragraph in the body of the paper.
Contact Information
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