ELA Lesson: Air Pollution and Electric Vehicles
Lesson Plan
50 minutesGrades5English Language Arts
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Written by Christa Delaney, Sustainable Jersey for Schools
About this lesson
Students use reading comprehension skills to learn about asthma, air pollution, and electric vehicles and analyze data from their interview results.
Inquire: Students analyze a video on how air pollution and asthma rates are related.
Investigate: Students determine the central idea of a text on electric vehicles and support the central idea with details from the text.
Inspire: Students construct a pie chart to show the data from the interviews they conducted.
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Everything you need to teach it
- Teacher SlideshowOpen
- Student DocumentOpen
- Teacher Answer KeyOpen
- Vocabulary CardsOpen
- Interview Results SheetOpen
- Sample Interview Results SheetOpen
Teaching tips
Suggestions
- This lesson can be taught during a unit on finding the central idea of a text or to reinforce the skills of supporting a central idea with key details.
- This lesson can be taught in conjunction with mathematics and analyzing data.
- This lesson highlights the importance of reducing air pollution to help reduce asthma rates.
- This lesson explores diverse voices that may be affected by air pollution more than others. During this lesson, the teacher may want to discuss how underserved communities have experienced asthma rates at a higher rate than other communities. Teacher can show this video that explains how asthma rates and climate change are connected in New Jersey and how underserved communities experience higher rates of asthma.
- Teacher can refer to the Sample Interview Results Sheet to see an example of how the interactive Interview Results Sheet works.
- For further guidance on implementing the full unit, teachers can review the unit plan.
Prerequisites
- This is lesson 2 of 3 in our 5th grade Green Transportation: ELA Unit.
- Students should have basic reading comprehension skills.
- Students should have a basic knowledge of how to identify the central idea of a text. Alternatively, teacher can prepare to give more guided instructions and practice on identifying the central idea of a text.
- Teacher should be sensitive while discussing asthma because there may be students in the class who have asthma.
Differentiation
- The structure of the Electric Vehicles Reading Comprehension 1-2-3 worksheet can be modified to support students.
- Students can create a bar graph from the data instead of using the preprogrammed pie chart.
- Students can display the data using different kinds of graphs and explain which graph best represents the data.
From the scientist review
One of the industries heavily contributing to carbon emissions and air pollution is the transportation sector. In this lesson, students will learn how to gather and evaluate air quality data from interviews in order to learn about the best type of transportation for the environment. After reviewing the lesson, we have concluded that it meets our credibility test for science.
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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.
