Power Up Plus! Unit Template
for 21st Century Teaching and Learning
Unit Plan Title: Ecosystems
Developed By:Lola Kleinschmit
Grade Level: 5
Length of Unit: 2 weeks
Standard: What standards will provide the focus for this unit? Choose one core content and one educational technology.
5.L.3.1. Students are able to describe how natural events and/or human influences may help or harm ecosystems.
5.L.3.2. Students are able to analyze the roles of organisms to determine the transfer of energy
using an energy pyramid model.
5.L.3.3. Students are able to describe how interrelationships enable some organisms to survive.
5.NC.2.2 Evaluate how changes in a systems model affect the goal.
5.NC.2.1 Evaluate what changes need to be made within a systems model to accomplish a goal.
5.NC.4.1 Evaluate solutions for positive and negative aspects in order to choose the optimum solution .
5.CT.1.4 Demonstrate the ability to transfer data between devices.
Essential Questions: What essential questions will focus this unit? Do humans have an effect on our ecosystems today? What
characteristics are essential in order for different land regions to be classified as that biome or are there crossovers so a region is
more that one ecosystem?
Academic Vocabulary: List the key terms students will need to know in order to understand the content. ecosystems, biomes,
habitat, vegetation, climate, ecosystem relationships(mutualism, parasite/host, commensalism) factors that determine the kind, and
numbers of plants and animals that an ecosystem can support, food chains, food webs, producers, consumers, herbivore, carnivores,
omnivores, producers, consumers, decomposers
Learning Targets: What are the knowledge, reasoning, skill, and product targets unpacked from the standard or benchmark?
Create
Evaluate
Content (nouns)
Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy
Analyze
Apply
Skill
Understand
Remember
Assessments
(verbs)
What topics do students need to know?
Relationships of animals
Classification of living organisms
Characteristics of an ecosystem(climate,
animals, vegetation, )
Consumers, Producers, Decomposers
Food Webs /Food Chains
Locations and Names of Ecosystems
Process in doing a Power Point project
What should students be able to do to
process and retain the knowledge?
What could students do or create to
demonstrate their understanding?
Determine the main characteristics for the
Ecosystem chosen to research
Organize the facts
Insert pictures
Plan and Organize a PowerPoint
presentation with requirements for the
PowerPoint project
Interpret appropriate data from internet
sites
Select appropriate information to place
into their Power Point
Select pictures for project
Use transitions in their project
appropriately
Present the information to the class
Analyze their own work and the work of
their classmates
Plan and present a Power Point of their
findings on the biome/ecosystem to the
class
Analyze their work explaining what they
thought to be right and what they would
have changed to make it better.
Rubric
Online tests and games to play to show
their knowledge after all of the
presentations have been presented.
Collage of animals and plants with words
made from pictures from magazines.
Page 1
Planning the Learning Experiences: What learning experiences will equip students to demonstrate the targeted learnings?
In other words, what instructional strategies can be used to facilitate students’ ability to successfully complete the assessments?
Page 2
Learning Cycle
Understand the concept of Ecosystems
Know that ecosystems and biomes are
related
Realize the relationships that animals,
plants, climate, and the topography have
in an ecosystem and how they depend on
each other
See the effect that humans can have on
ecosystems, helpful and harmful.
Research and organize information
needed to complete the assignment
Design and construct a Power Point that
can be used to teach other students about
the ecosystem he/she is researching.
Tech Integration
Research the internet
sites using Wonder
Wheel on Google to
collect information on
the four topics for their
graphic organizer to
collect information for
the Power Point.
Create a Power Point
Presentation to present
to the class their
knowledge of the
Ecosystem
Create a Wordle coping
two paragraphs from an
internet site to see the
important vocabulary
Work at achieving quality work, that
getting done to be done is not the goal of
this project
Reading Strategies
Before
_Preteach vocabulary
Learn the names and locations of the
Ecosystems and biomes
Discuss the characteristics of the biomes
after each child has researched the biome.
___________________________
____________________________
____________________________
____________________________
During
Use a graphic organizer to collect the
date which the child thinks is important to
that ecosystem. We tried 3 different kinds
from the Reading Quest.com to see which
ones worked the best
Check the understanding of the content
with individual meeting with the teacher
___________________________
_____________________________
_____________________________
_____________________________
After
_Using a rubric, check the content and
understanding of the biome they have
through the way the information was
presented in the Power Point.
Answer any questions asked by the
instructor or any of the other students to
clarify the content.
____________________________
_____________________________
_____________________________
_____________________________
Learning how to self-evaluate and peer
evaluate the completed projects.
Know that reports are not the only way to
learn about a topic, and books are not
needed all of the time.
21st Century Skills:
X
X
X
Page 3
Digital Age Literacy
Inventive Thinking
Effective Communication
High Productivity
Where: How will you let participants know the
expected outcomes/purpose of the work? I will
tell the students what I expect and give them a
check list of the topics that must be included in the
content and also in the Power Point. This will be
explain with the use of two rubcis-one for content
and one for the Power Point.
Hook: How will you engage participants? Each
student has a computer. Two people work
together to collect the necessary information.
Then each student will design and write the Power
Point assignment to present the information.
Explore: What activities will provide experiences
and explorations to equip participants for
completing the final performances? Once the
information was collected, games were played on
the computers to reinforce the
knowledge(Jeopardy, matching, word finds)
A couple of Power Points were also shown to
demonstrate the parts of a Power Point and how
they are made. A senior student demonstrated to
the class on the procedure, parts, and steps in
making a power point as none of the students had
never done a Power Point before. The students
then worked on their projects. They chose styles,
entered knowledge they wanted to present and
then added pictures. After they completed this,
they worked on transitions, sound, and order until
the project was complete.
Reflect: In what ways will participants be
encouraged to dig deeper through feedback and
self-assessment? We watched the Power Points
and critiqued them as a class, themselves, and the
teacher or aides.
Then the students were allowed to change
anything they chose to change before the final
project was shown again and scored by their peers
and the teacher.
Exhibit: How will participants show their level of
understanding? Evaluate their strengths and
challenges? Individual student/teacher meetings
were met with asking questions, discussing
content, and clarifications of the content before a
test was given. The final project was an art Collage
project in which the pairs of students collected
pictures of animals, vegetation, and scenery of
their perception of the biome. Then words were
added that depicted mains words from wordle
that was made. All of the students had a great
understanding of the content. The biggest
challenges were the time I thought would take to
complete the Power Points took longer for most of
the students. Those that finished started working
on the collage until all of the projects were
completed. Games were also played from internet
sites and others helped students that were
struggling with the project.
Page 4
Lessons/Activities: Use this space to describe sequence of learning activities, materials/resources needed, time frames, etc.
1.
2.
3.
Viewed internet sites for the content of the ecosystem
Taught the vocabulary and discussed the main biomes or ecosystems in the world.
Chose the biome each chose to research, learn information on, present to the class, and teach the other students about their
biome.
4. Researched and collected information on a graphic organizer (four areas of main ideas and at least four details about each
topic. Main ideas included 1. Land descriptions 2. Climate 3. Plants or vegetation 4. Animals Each student could include
any other interesting information they chose to include.
5. They had to have the details approved by the teacher or the aide, or further information had to be researched. Independent
interviews with the teacher were held to make sure the content was understood.
6. Started working the Power Point
7. Presented the first run through for critiquing by themselves, peers, and instructors.
8. Made improvements on their project
9. Final view of their Project with peer editing and instructor editing.
10. While everyone was completing their project, the collages were started and games were played to reinforce their
knowledge.
Time frame Instruction—3 days
Research –4 days
Power Points 5-7 days
Collages—5 days
Modifications: In what ways will the learning experiences be differentiated to meet student needs?
Far Below Standard
Approaching Standard
Meeting Standard
Exceeding Standard
The number of facts was
reduced to two details.
Help was given to these
students with typing and
construction of the
Power Points. The
number of slides was also
reduced if they chose.
Reading was done of the
internet sites to the
students when they
needed help and then
they told the facts he/she
wanted included with
someone doing the main
writing for them before
they worked on the
Power Points. Student
aides who knew how to
make a Power Point
helped those who
needed help
Some help was given to
these students if they
needed help. Three of
these students took the
computers back to the
round table and my class
aide sat at the table to
answer their questions
and guide them in doing
their project.
I walked around constantly
giving help and giving
encouragement to tweak
up their work, dig a little
deeper, and ask if they
could do anything
different that would make
their project better.
I constantly encourage them to
tweak up the content, dig a little
deeper, ask questions to see if
he/she could find any other
information that they don’t think
the other students wouldn’t
know, and see if the final project
could be the best in the class. I
also want these students to
teach the other students what
they know about Power Points
so the other students can learn
to make their projects better.
Page 5