Science Discovery Lesson Template
Title of Lesson: Extreme Weather Conditions
Student: Taylor Garr
Grade: First
I. Lesson Objective(s) and Goal(s):
A. Goals:
The students will be able to identify and describe tornados, earthquakes, and hurricanes
and how to stay safe when they are occurring.
B. Objectives-The students will be able to identify the differences between tornados, earthquakes, and
hurricanes.
-The students will be able to see a picture and identify a tornado, earthquake, and
hurricane.
-The students will be able to draw a tornado, earthquake, and hurricane.
-The students will be able to show and describe how they would stay safe in a tornado,
earthquake, and hurricane if they were occurring.
C. State Standard:
Indiana State Core Standards: Core Standard 1.1: Make observations about the
natural world through the use of tools. Draw pictures and write descriptions of the
features of the objects or phenomena being studied.
D. Process Skills:
-Explore, justify, represent, construct, discover, explain, predict, develop, describe.
E. Assessment:
-Formative: I will be walking around observing and checking for understanding
as the students are at their stations.
-Summative: The students will identify the storms, based on the pictures and
right the names on their white boards.
II. Materials:
- Paper and pencils (whole class)
-Seven jars with water, vinegar, dish soap, and glitter in them.
-Three large pans of jello
-Toothpicks and marshmallows.
-7 large bowls of water
-Food coloring (7 squeeze bottles)
-Spoons (whole class)
-White boards, dry erase markers/erasers (whole class)
-Videos of tornado, earthquake, and hurricane.
-Pictures of tornados, earthquakes, and hurricanes.
III. Management:
-The students will be split into three groups, these groups will be assigned before the lesson.
-The materials at the stations will be prepared before the lesson.
-The videos will be pulled up on the white board.
-There will be a teachers aid at each station.
-The students will get six minutes at each station.
Groups:
1: Miguel, Asia, Cael, Zoey, Alicia C., Conner, Maur’Tel
2: Theo, J.J., Journey, Blake, Hannah, Landrum, Kasyn
3: Brooklynn, Johnathan, Jayda, Alicia J., Virgil, Markus, Aiden
IV. Adaptations:
-I will continue to go over examples of tornados, earthquakes, and hurricanes until the entire class
can identify the storms.
-If a small group of students isn’t understanding the concept, I will have them in a small group
with me.
V. Lesson Presentation: (description of procedure)
A. Introduction
Anticipatory set: The students will be at their desks. I will begin by showing the students
three different videos one of an earthquake, one of a tornado, and one of a hurricane. I
will ask them if they can identify these storms.
Statement of purpose: “Today, we are going to learn about four different types of
extreme weather conditions; tornados, earthquakes, and hurricanes. It t is important to
know what these storms entail, so you know how to keep you and your family safe.”
B. Body/Input/Output (step by step
Question: What is the difference between a thunderstorm, tornado, earthquake, and a
hurricane?
-The students should be at the rug, have the students come up with a hypothesis.
This should be a discussion amongst the class. Write their hypothesis on a big
piece of paper.
C. Experimental investigation
-Have the students go to their assigned stations. There will be three stations, one station,
for each extreme weather condition (tornado, earthquake, hurricane). The stations will be
labeled with a picture of the extreme weather condition. There will be an aid at each
station, giving the students instructions on what to do.
Station 1: This is the tornado station, at this station the students will first look at
the picture of the tornado, then they will make a tornado. There will be a clear jar
(peanut butter jar) filled ¾ the way up with water, with a drop of vinegar, dish
soap, and a little glitter. The students will move the jar from side-to-side and
draw what they see.
Station 2: This is the earthquake station, at this station the students will first look
at the picture of the earthquake, then they will make an earthquake happen. Their
will be a large pan of jello at the station, the students will build a house out of
toothpicks and marshmallows and put their house on the jello, they will then
shake the pan with the jello and their houses and watch and draw what happens.
Station 3: This is the hurricane station, at this station the students will first look
at the picture of the hurricane, then they will make a hurricane. There will be
large bowls filled ¾ the way up with water. The students will put four drops of
food coloring in the water and then stir with a spoon. They will then watch and
draw what they observe.
-The students will then go back to their desks and I will show them a picture of each of
the three extreme weather conditions and they will write on their white board what they
think each one is and we will discuss what they are and how to stay safe if they are
happening near us. We will all do the position that our bodies should be in during a
tornado, making sure no windows or big objects that could fall on us are around. We will
then find a large object to go inside or under to protect us from falling objects if there
were an earthquake. Finally, we will go to a place with no windows or large objects that
could fall on us (bathroom) as if a hurricane were occurring.
D. Draw Conclusions
-We will all meet at the rug and talk about what we saw in the experiments and the
pictures. We will discuss what we think the differences between the storms are. If the
students can’t come up with a conclusion, I will help them by telling them some of the
differences. I will write our conclusions on a big piece of paper.
E. Determine validity of hypothesis
We will refer back to our hypothesis and discuss whether we were correct or not.
VI.
Resources—
Tornado Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PjHe0nPdRs
Earthquake Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCJtvtUlhPk
Hurricane Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDFK40UMotc
VII. University Student’s Analysis of Lesson
How many students achieved the objective for today? For those who did not, why not?
What were my strengths, opportunities for growth?
How would I alter this lesson?
How would I pace it differently?
Did I have all students actively helping in the learning process