Shannon Loggins
ED 421
Technology Unit
Grade Level: 3rd Grade
Content Area: Social Studies
Title of Unit: Brazil
Learning Goal:
Students will:
 Gain an understanding about Brazil, and a more specific understanding of one
region/animal/landscape.
 Be able to understand why places/regions/animals are important.
 Be able to use maps to acquire and process information.
 Be able to understand and interpret the change over time when looking at maps
from different times.
 Be able to see how people and the environment are interrelated.
Technology Standards:
#1 Creativity and Innovation: Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct
knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology.
#2 Communication and Collaboration: Students use digital media and environments
to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support
individual learning and contribute to the learning of others.
#3 Research and Information Fluency: Students apply digital tools to gather,
evaluate and use information.
#4 Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making: Students use critical
thinking to plan and conduct research, manage projects, solve problems, and make
informed decisions using appropriate digital tools and resources.
#6 Technology Operations and Concepts: Students demonstrate a sound
understanding of technology concepts, systems, and operations.
Technologies Integrated:
 Creating a blog
 Internet research
 Mapping
 Scanning
 PowerPoint Presentation
Resources:
 Computers
 Blogger account
 The Internet
Shannon Loggins
ED 421
Technology Unit




Scanners
PowerPoint
Paper
Markers/colored pencils
Unit Outline: Each day is approximately one to two hours, which is the amount of
time that would be devoted to working on a social studies unit each day.
Day 1
Students will create a blog. Once created, students will do their first entry with
writing about what they know about Brazil and what they want to learn about the
country. The students will be updating their blog throughout the research project
and they will be able to use it to create their final presentation.
Day 2
Students will start research about Brazil on the Internet. They will decide an animal
native to Brazil, an area of Brazil (like the Amazon River), or an ecosystem (like the
rain forest) to focus their research on. It is pretty open as long as they can find
adequate research material. Their project will be around their topic that they
choose. If a student is going to choose and animal they will need to find what they
eat, their habitat, their predators, descriptions of the animal, their life span, and
interesting facts. If they chose a region or a specific landform, they will give a
description of the landform/region, what animals live there, what plant life grows
there, interesting facts, and if possible the human impact on it.
Day 3
Students will finish up their basic research on the topic of their choice. Students will
blog about what topic they decided to research. They will write about the most
interesting thing they found in their research and why they think it is so interesting.
Day 4
Students will be using maps on this day. They will find a map from the past, of their
region they are studying, or they area that their animal lived in the past, and then
find a map from a more recent time. Students will analyze the differences that they
observe and write about it in their blog. They will also be creating their own map of
their region or animal’s area of Brazil.
Day 5
Students will be creating an art project that goes with their project. They will be
drawing their animal, drawing a scene that goes with their region (for example, if
they are doing the Amazon River, they can draw the river and the animals that live
in or around it). This picture will be scanned onto the computer for their final
project.
Shannon Loggins
ED 421
Technology Unit
Day 6 and 7
Students will be creating a PowerPoint for their final presentation of their project.
The teacher will guide students to how to use PowerPoint and then students will
begin to put in their information that they found during their research (they will
also be using the information that they blogged about). Students will also be
scanning in their picture that they created and putting it into their presentation.
They will look for pictures on the Internet to add to their PowerPoint as well.
Day 8 and 9
Students will be giving their presentations about their topic on Brazil.
Day 10
Students will write their final blog. They will discuss what they learned about their
topic, the most interesting thing that they found out about their topic, why they
think their animal/region/landform is important and one thing that they learned
about someone else’s topic.