1. Teacher Guide
This lesson is designed to teach kids to ask a critical thinking question that you can’t just put into a search box to solve. To do that, we encourage them with smaller questions that search can help them answer. Make sure that you read the notes for each slide: they not only give you teaching tips but also provide answers and hints so you can help the kids if they are having trouble.
Remember, you can always send feedback to the Bing in the Classroom team at You can learn more about the program at bing.com/classroom and follow the daily lessons on our Partners In Learning site.
Want to extend today’s lesson? Consider using Skype in the Classroom to arrange for your class to chat with another class in today’s location. And if you are using Windows 8, you can also use the Bing apps to learn more about this location and topic; the Travel and News apps in particular make great teaching tools.
Alice Keeler is a mother of 5 and a teacher in Fresno, California. She has her B.A in Mathematics, M.S. in Educational Media Design and Technology and is currently working on a doctorate in Educational Technology with an emphasis in games and simulations. EdTech speaker, blogger, and presenter. Founder of coffeeEDU, a 1 hour conference event for educators. New Media Consortium Horizon report advisory panel member. High school math teacher for 14 years. Currently teaching pre-service teachers curriculum, instruction and technology at California State University Fresno. Teaches online for Fresno Pacific University in the Masters in Educational Technology. Passionate that kids are not failures, researches gamification in education to increase student motivation.
This lesson is designed to teach the Common Core State Standard: English Language Arts
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W Gather relevant information from multiple authoritative print and digital sources, using advanced searches effectively; assess the usefulness of each source in answering the research question; integrate information into the text selectively to maintain the flow of ideas, avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of tasks, purposes, and audiences.

2. What are sustainable ways to grow cities?
© AirPano
Having this up as kids come in is a great settle down activity. You can start class by asking them for thoughts about the picture or about ideas on how they could solve the question of the day.

3. What are sustainable ways to grow cities?
Palm Jumeirah is one of three planned man-made islands in Dubai. Construction on the artificial archipelago began in summer Living spaces on the island – including condos and hotels – opened in 2006.
An engineering feat by any measure, the execution of Palm Jumeirah was not without troubles. The breakwall built in the sea to reduce erosion was so effective, it stopped natural tide flows on the island’s shores. Gaps in the breakwall were added to allow water to move more freely.
Another of the three planned Palm Islands, Palm Jebel Ali, is expected to be 50 percent larger than Palm Jumeirah. It’s currently about 80 percent complete. The third, Palm Deira has been renamed Deira Island and is intended as a site for retail and entertainment. Construction of both Palm Jebel Ali and Palm Deira has been on hold since 2008.
Depending on time, you can either have students read this silently to themselves, have one of them read out loud, or read it out loud yourself.

4. What are sustainable ways to grow cities?1
Web Search
Define urban sprawl? 2
What are the biggest issues with continuing to sprawl out? 3
What are some of the environmental impacts of sprawl? 4
Image Search
Find images of buildings that grow cities vertically rather than horizontally. 5
Thinking
If you were to design an alternative to sprawl what kind of factors would you consider in doing so?
There are a couple of ways to use this slide, depending on how much technology you have in your classroom. You can have students find answers on their own, divide them into teams to have them do all the questions competitively, or have each team find the answer to a different question and then come back together. If you’re doing teams, it is often wise to assign them roles (one person typing, one person who is in charge of sharing back the answer, etc.)

5. What are sustainable ways to grow cities?5
Minutes
You can adjust this based on how much time you want to give kids. If a group isn’t able to answer in 5 minutes, you can give them the opportunity to update at the end of class or extend time.

6. What are sustainable ways to grow cities?1
Web Search
Define urban sprawl? 2
What are the biggest issues with continuing to sprawl out? 3
What are some of the environmental impacts of sprawl? 4
Image Search
Find images of buildings that grow cities vertically rather than horizontally. 5
If you were to design an alternative to sprawl what kind of factors would you consider in doing so?
You can ask the students verbally or let one of them come up and insert the answer or show how they got it. This way, you also have a record that you can keep as a class and share with parents, others.

7. What are sustainable ways to grow cities?1
Web Search
Define urban sprawl?
(Possible Search Query: “urban sprawl” )
Sources
Wikipedia -
Urban sprawl or suburban sprawl describes the expansion of human populations away from central urban areas into previously remote and rural areas, often resulting in communities reliant upon heavy automobile usage.

8. What are sustainable ways to grow cities?2
Web Search
What are the biggest issues with continuing to sprawl out?
(Possible Search Queries: ”urban sprawl”, “urban sprawl issues” )
Sources
NumbersUSA Education and Research Foundation -
Some of the biggest issues with urban sprawl are:
There is not enough land. Sprawling out is developing on land that is often needed for agriculture. Eventually we will run out.
Spreads resources out inefficiently. Services like police and fire have more ground to cover for a low amount of people. Things like roads and water/gas lines and electricity are spread out inefficiently.
Increases pollution as people are more reliant on cars

9. What are sustainable ways to grow cities?3
Web Search
What are some of the environmental impacts of sprawl?
(Possible Search Query: “Sprawl environmental impacts”)
Sources
NumbersUSA Education and Research Foundation -
The biggest environmental impact sprawl has is all of the pollution. Sprawled out cities are extremely reliant on cars so while they may produce less pollution as a whole, they produce significantly more pollution per person than higher density cities.

10. What are sustainable ways to grow cities?4
Image Search
Find images of buildings that grow cities vertically rather than horizontally.
(Possible Search Query: “vertical city” )
Sources

11. What are sustainable ways to grow cities?5
Thinking
If you were to design an alternative to sprawl what kind of factors would you consider in doing so?
Students may include factors such as environmental impact, (how dependent on cars it is, how much farmland it eats up) resource efficiency, and ways to incorporate green spaces.

12. What are sustainable ways to grow cities?
This slide is a chance to summarize the information from the previous slides to build your final answer to the question.