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 the Microsoft Educator Network.
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, take a Skype lesson on today’s topic, or invite a guest speaker to expand on today’s subject. And if you are using Windows 8, the panoramas in the MSN Travel App are great teaching tools. We have thousands of other education apps available on Windows here.
Nell Bang-Jensen is a teacher and theater artist living in Philadelphia, PA. Her passion for arts education has led her to a variety of roles including developing curriculum for Philadelphia Young Playwrights and teaching at numerous theaters and schools around the city. She works with playwrights from ages four to ninety on developing new work and is especially interested in alternative literacies and theater for social change. A graduate of Swarthmore College, she currently works in the Artistic Department of the Wilma Theater and, in addition to teaching, is a freelance actor and dramaturg. In 2011, Nell was named a Thomas J. Watson Fellow and spent her fellowship year traveling to seven countries studying how people get their names.
This lesson is designed to teach the Common Core State Standard: Reading Informational Text
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.2.5 Know and use various text features (e.g., captions, bold print, subheadings, glossaries, indexes, electronic menus, icons) to locate key facts or information in a text efficiently.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.2.9 Compare and contrast the most important points presented by two texts on the same topic.

2. Why might people want a park like this one in the middle of their city?
© Sean Pavone/Shutterstock
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. Why might people want a park like this one in the middle of their city?
The history of Bethesda Terrace is the history of New York’s Central Park itself, and by extension, offers a glimpse of New York City’s own ups and downs since the mid-19th century.
Bethesda Terrace and Bethesda Fountain were part of the design submitted by Calvert Vaux and his new working partner, Frederick Law Olmsted, when they won the bid in 1858 to create the “Greensward Plan,” the public greenspace in Manhattan now known as Central Park. For what they considered the heart of the park, Vaux and Olmsted designed a promenade (the Mall) to usher visitors across a grand terrace or through these arches below to the fountain beyond and a spectacular view overlooking the Lake.
Fast-forward to the late 1960s when Bethesda Terrace hosted an outdoor café for a while. It fell into disrepair during the ‘70s, along with the rest of Central Park. But, as part of the park’s restoration throughout the 1980s and ‘90s, the terrace and fountain have been restored to their original splendor.
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. Why might people want a park like this one in the middle of their city?1
Video Search/Thinking
Find a video of people in a city park. What kinds of activities are they engaged in? 2
Web Search
What was Central Park created? 3
What are some social benefits that might arise from having a park in the middle of a city? 4
What are some health benefits that might arise from having a park in the middle of a city? 5
What are some ecological benefits that might arise from having a park in the middle of a city?
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. Why might people want a park like this one in the middle of their city?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. Why might people want a park like this one in the middle of their city?1
Video Search/Thinking
Find a video of people in a city park. What kinds of activities are they engaged in? 2
Web Search
What was Central Park created? 3
What are some social benefits that might arise from having a park in the middle of a city? 4
What are some health benefits that might arise from having a park in the middle of a city? 5
What are some ecological benefits that might arise from having a park in the middle of a city?

7. Why might people want a park like this one in the middle of their city?1
Video Search/Thinking
Find a video of people in a city park. What kinds of activities are they engaged in?
(Possible Search Queries: "Bing/Videos: for kids, people in park”, “Bing/Videos: for kids, central park”).
Answers will vary depending on what video students watch. (Different students can watch different videos and compare what they notice). For example, in the video here: kids are playing on a swing set in Central Park.

8. Why might people want a park like this one in the middle of their city?2
Web Search
What was Central Park created?
(Possible Search Queries: “why was Central Park created?”, “for kids, history of Central Park”).
From
Central Park was the first landscaped public park in the United States. Advocates of creating the park--primarily wealthy merchants and landowners--admired the public grounds of London and Paris and urged that New York needed a comparable facility to establish its international reputation. A public park, they argued, would offer their own families an attractive setting for carriage rides and provide working-class New Yorkers with a healthy alternative to the saloon. After three years of debate over the park site and cost, in 1853 the state legislature authorized the City of New York to use the power of eminent domain to acquire more than 700 acres of land in the center of Manhattan.

9. Why might people want a park like this one in the middle of their city?3
Web Search
What are some social benefits that might arise from having a park in the middle of a city?
(Possible Search Queries: “what are the social benefits of parks?”, “why are parks important?”).
From
Along with an increase in physical activity, outdoor recreation offers the chance to socialize, an important benefit in itself. For instance, birdwatching incorporates several activities, including the physical movement of walking, interpreting visual and auditory input, and speaking to other birdwatchers, according to a 2010 report from Resources for the Future. The report also notes that social settings of outdoor spaces, especially urban parks, are associated with positive experiences. Outdoor physical activity can also increase pride in the community, as well as offer the chance to meet people with similar interests, says Kent State University professor Andrew Lepp.

10. Why might people want a park like this one in the middle of their city?4
Web Search
What are some health benefits that might arise from having a park in the middle of a city?
(Possible Search Queries: “what are the health benefits of parks?”, “why are parks important?”).
From
Nearly half of Americans get less than the recommended minimum amount of physical activity—more than one-third engage in no leisure-time physical activity at all. In the movement to improve the health and wellness of adults and children across the country, parks have a critical role to play.
Whether hosting a Little League team or a seniors’ tai chi class, parks promote physical and mental health for people of all ages.

11. Why might people want a park like this one in the middle of their city?5
Web Search
What are some ecological benefits that might arise from having a park in the middle of a city?
(Possible Search Queries: “what are the ecological benefits of parks?”, “why are parks important?”).
From
-Green spaces provide habitat for a variety of birds, fish, animals, insects, and other organisms, while also providing corridors and greenways to link habitats.
-Trees have been shown to absorb pollutants; as few as 20 trees can offset the pollution from a car driven 60 miles per day.
-The urban heat island effect occurs often in urbanized areas, where buildings, asphalt, and concrete absorb solar radiation and then reomit it as heat, causing the air temperature of the city to rise.

12. Why might people want a park like this one in the middle of their city?
Students should pull together the information gathered to think about the benefits that public parks provide, especially in cities, where other green spaces may be hard to find. They should understand that Central Park was originally created to give families in New York City an opportunity to engage in healthy activities together, and today, these activities still happen there (like swinging, playing soccer, or reading a book on a bench). Students should understand there are social, health, and ecological benefits to having parks in cities. For example, parks may encourage neighbors to interact with each other, they may promote people’s physical health by giving them an open space to exercise, and there are ecological benefits to having trees in the middle of the city that can help absorb pollutants.