Lesson Plan : Debating with Character
Teacher Name: | Chemist |
Grade: | Grade 9-10 |
Subject: | Science |
Topic: | The Cause of Global Warming |
Content: | Students will exam the two major views of the causes of global warming (human activities vs. solar changes). Students will look into the ethics, integrity, rights-of-others, citizenship, responsibility, trust and wisdom needed to discuss an issue that can easily polarize. |
Goals: | Students will learn to examine their own knowledge of the topic, compare it to the information provided by the teacher and student research, and discuss the issue. Students will be asked how wisdom, integrity and responsibility play a role in what is taught to students by parents, television programs, teachers, advertisements. |
Objectives: | Students will demonstrate a healthy debate using various character traits. |
Materials: | TV commercials, two short movies about global warming (one that suggest humans are responsible and another on solar flares), internet research. |
Introduction: | Students are asked to work in groups of four to come up with causes and effects of global warming. |
Development: | Students share their current knowledge with the class, including where or how they learned facts that they are listing. |
Practice: | Discuss wisdom. What is it? How does it relate to what we are doing? |
Accommodations: | |
Checking For Understanding: | Students will share their results as to what is causing global warming. |
Closure: | Students will be told of a new project being promoted by the government that would require all electricity producing coal plants to capture released CO2 and liquify it and place it in underground acquifers. Students will chart the pros and cons of such a program. Students will again compare their thoughts with others. Teacher will then ask: Have you gained wisdom? discernment? from this lesson. |
Evaluation: | Students will evaluated on participating in the discussion. Students were also tested on two current thoughts on global warming. |
Teacher Reflections: | Students most enjoyed learning that a lot of their previous knowledge was wrong ... especially that polar bears are not dying out and that New York City will not be underwater in 20 years. Students also learned to be more discerning when watching a movie or television special that may be biased. We talked about why it may be biased, and what is any character traits were shown or not demonstrated. |
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