1. Culture, Environment, & Community By: Farrahn Evans
Ubd Unit Plan
Culture, Environment, & Community
By: Farrahn Evans

2. Stage 1
SS2H2 The student will describe the Georgia Creek and Cherokee cultures of the past in terms of tools, clothing, homes, ways of making a living, and accomplishments.
a. Describe the regions in Georgia where the Creeks and Cherokees lived and how the people used their local resources.
b. Compare and contrast the Georgia Creek and Cherokee cultures of the past to Georgians today.

3. Stage 1 Related Standards
SS2H1 The student will read about and describe the lives of historical figures in
Georgia history.
a. Identify the contributions made by these historic figures: James Oglethorpe, Tomochichi, and Mary Musgrove (founding of Georgia); Sequoyah (development of a Cherokee alphabet); Jackie Robinson (sports); Martin Luther King, Jr. (civil rights); Jimmy Carter (leadership and human rights).
b. Describe how everyday life of these historical figures is similar to and different from everyday life in the present (food, clothing, homes, transportation, communication, recreation, rights, and freedoms).
SS2G2 The student will describe the cultural and geographic systems associated with the historical figures in SS2H1 and Georgia’s Creeks and Cherokees.
a. Identify specific locations significant to the life and times of each historic figure on a political map.
b. Describe how place (physical and human characteristics) had an impact on the lives of each historic figure.
c. Describe how each historic figure adapted to and was influenced by his/her environment.
d. Trace examples of travel and movement of these historic figures and their ideas across time.
e. Describe how the region in which these historic figures lived affected their lives and compare these regions to the region in which the students live
RL.2.1. Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text.
SS2G1 The student will locate major topographical features of Georgia and willdescribe how these features define Georgia’s surface.a.Locate all the geographic regions of Georgia: Blue Ridge Mountains, Piedmont, Coastal Plain, Valley and Ridge, and Appalachian Plateau.b.Locate the major rivers: Ocmulgee, Oconee, Altamaha, Savannah, St. Mary’s, Chattahoochee, and Flint.
S2E3. Students will observe and record changes in their surroundings and infer the causes of the changes.
a.Recognize effects that occur in a specific area caused by weather, plants, animals, and/or people.

4. Stage 1
Understanding
Students will understand that environment and culture influence one another.
Students will understand that daily living and interactions have changed over the years.
Essential Questions
What role does the past play in our current lives?
How does culture affect our relationship with the environment?
What makes up a culture?
Knowledge
Students will know that another group/culture (Native Americans) were the first people to settle into the state of Georgia.
Vocabulary related to Native Americans
Students will know where the Cherokee and Creek Native Americans lived and how to identify it on a map.
Students will know how the Cherokee and Creek Native Americans used their natural resources.
Students will know how to organize their thoughts and convey them on paper or orally.
Skills
Use various resources to find information
Use of technology
Interviewing and summarizing
Compare and contrast life in past times and life today.
Describe how people from various cultures live
Language, Clothing, Culture, Housing,
Transfer
Students will be able to use their learning to view interactions of different cultures and people with greater perspective and empathy.

5. Stage 2 Performance Task A
The environment plays a central role in culture. If you went back in time to stay with a Native American (Cherokee or Creek) what would life be like for you? You will be keeping up with your findings and thoughts related to our study of Native Americans in a journal. Then, you will choose a Native American tribe and create a survival guide through pictures and captions. Your guide must touch on specific areas such as habitat, food, leisure activities, lifestyle, location, and gender roles. After everyone completes their survival guide you will switch guides. Then you will write a final journal reflection about the survival guide you received from a classmate.

6. Stage 2 Performance Task A Directions Journaling
You will be keeping a detailed journal on your thoughts as it relates to our study of Native Americans.
Questions to consider
What’s the climate that The Creeks/Cherokee live in?
How is the climate affecting their lives and what is your evidence? (Think about the foods they ate and how they prepared their food.)
How are their homes built and why? How does it look in comparison to your home or homes you’ve seen? Can you imagine living in this type of home? How would your life be different if you did live in this type of home?
What types of things do they do for fun? Compare and contrast the things they do for fun and the things that you do.
How would they welcome you and what is your evidence?
Students will be turning in their journals throughout the unit and I will be giving them feedback to guide their progress. I expect that each student will respond in a different way and my feedback will encourage and invite them to share their perspective. These are just a few questions to consider. Higher level thinking will emerge as we progress.
There will also be time throughout our unit for student-led conferences with me where we will discuss the things in their journal and things of interest to them related to the unit.
Creating the Survival Guide
Refer back to journals and make connections of things that you would need to be aware of to survive or adapt to the culture you’re now a part of.
Ask yourself the question, what will my new environment look like?
Be creative and illustrate the environment.
Your guide may consist of digital prints or photocopied pictures you’ve found.
I will be bringing in books related to the Creek and Cherokee Native Americans.
Everyone will have the opportunity to use computers to perform research. I will provide the class with appropriate links related to our unit.
Sharing
Everyone will switch survival guides. After you receive a surivival guide you will write a final journal indicating if the guide was written for the Creeks or Cherokees, and you will discuss your evidence. Also, journal what ways your classmates survival guide differs from or relates to from your survival guide. What aspects of the culture have they considered?

7. Connections to Understanding
Self Assessment through student led conferences where the students will answer particular questions and review and discuss their own understandings
Captions functioning as explanations.
In their survival guides students will include captions that explain different aspects of the culture and environment they are now a part of.
The journal/survival guide as an explanation
A survival guide that the students have developed that should illustrate a personalized, thoughtful, and coherent grasp of the Native American culture and environment.
Perspective – Life from a different point of view.
Students will have guided questions that they will answer to help show their understanding of how the earlier environments were different and how that relates to a different culture.
Empathy- Empathizing with Native Americans throughout their journal and guide.
Students will be journaling about aspects of the Native American environment and culture that are different from their own.
(Stiggins & Chappus, 2011)

8. Is it a fair assessment?
Students will all have access to the same resources
Task is authentic because it provides various ways for students to learn and it’s applicable to real world situations.
They will conference with the teacher throughout the journaling process, which would be a way ensuring that no student is over looked throughout our journey with this unit.
Students will be getting feedback on their journals throughout the unit so that the teacher can ensure that all students have enough information to guide their survival guides.

9. Stage 2 Performance Task B
Communities that we live in have grown in size or decreased in size; some have become more city-like while others more isolated. To get a history of how your community has changed, you will become a journalist over the next few weeks. We will have guest speakers who have lived in the community for a long time or who have knowledge of the history of the area (e.g., teachers, local workers, grandparents, etc.) come into our classroom. You will have the option of journaling or using an audio recorder to record the information they will share. After all of the guests have come in to speak with our class you will use the information you have collected to write an informative piece about how our community has changed and how that might affect them. We will pull information from everyone’s pieces to construct a wall of artifacts and information about our community’s growth or changes.
(Readapted from Portland School Org)

10. Stage 2
Performance Task B Directions
Guest speakers
Throughout our unit on Georgians various speakers will be coming to speak to our class about the history of Georgia. During their discussions everyone will be given journal tablets to record important details they have been informed on.
They will be also given audio recorders, and they have the option to listen to the audio at a later time and record important details.
At the end of every speakers discussion their will be a Q & A session where students can interview them.
Journaling
After students have taken notes or recorded important details they will be summarizing the things they have heard from guest speakers.
This is also where students will share their reactions and thoughts as to the things they were told during the interviews.
They should consider additional things they wonder and why they wonder about it.
I will Include a graphic organizer with the first journal experience for them to help guide their journaling.
(Possible sections: facts, how this applies, what does this make me wonder?)
Informative Pieces
Students will be using the information they have recorded and journal about to write a piece that discusses how the community has change, reasons why the community has changed, and how the changes affect them.
They will need to include information they’ve gotten from at least 3 of the guest speakers
Consider 2 C’s
Connections: What connections do you draw between the speakers illustration of the community and your own experiences with the community?
Concepts: What key concepts or ideas do you think are important and worth holding on to?
Changes: What changes has the community undergone since the time that the speaker mentions?
Students will have the opportunity to share their informative pieces if they would like to.
Class Wall/Mural
Students will put quotations from their writing or journals on the wall and they will bring in pictures they may have from home. They can also print out pictures or artifacts using our class computers shows the community before or now throughout this unit.
We will have a class discussion on the class wall to wrap up our holistic thinking
The class wall will remain up throughout our school year and the students and teacher may continue to bring in material to add to it.

11. Connections to Understanding
Through their informative pieces students will provide complex, insightful, and credible explanations as to how and why their community has changed over time.
Through their informative pieces. Students will be required to effectively and sensitively interpret key concepts related to the changes of the community laid out by guest speakers .
The informative pieces and the final class wall will reflect the community’s growth from the perspective of the various speakers and the entire class.
(Stiggins & Chappus, 2011)

12. Is it a fair assessment?
Students will have access to proper resources to complete the assignments.
Task is authentic because it provides various ways for students to learn and it’s applicable to real world situations.
I have constructed the design so that students will have options. It can be completed in various way.
Task is relative to students’ lives.
I will determine the amount of time it should take to complete this unit based on my student’s understandings via formative assessments.

13. Stage 3 Lesson Plan – Culture Lesson Plan - Environment /Landforms
What makes a culture a culture?
Compare and contrast different cultures.
Classroom Culture
Students identify or bring in artifacts that might be specific to their culture.
Students will be constructed on what represents a culture and it will be well expressed that they may share pictures, stories, and other things that every student will have access to.
Notes will go home to parents in every language relevant to the backgrounds that make up the class informing parents on the assignment and the expectations.
Lesson Plan - Environment /Landforms
What makes up an environment?
How has the environment around us changed?
How does the environment relate to the basic needs of survival?
How do environmental and geographic features of a community affect the lives of its inhabitants?
What causes change in our physical world?
How do landforms affect the environment?
What benefits/challenges would people face living on each landform we have identified?
How would life be different if this landform wasn’t here? What’s your evidence
Study another tribe in a different region (Soiux in the Plains) to give a richer perspective of the Cherokee and Creek.
How would their lives been different if they were in this region?
Integrates with Informative writing.

14. Stage 3 Lesson Plan - Informative Writing
What is the goal of an informative piece?
What do informative pieces look like?
Have we encountered informative pieces?
Pose a situation where they need directions or information.
What would our world be like without informative pieces?
Lesson Plan - Age Appropriate Research & Interviews
What sources can we use to conduct research?
Who should we interview?
What type of language should be used in interviews?
What do interviews look like?
Give students the opportunity to do interviews in class.
Focus on types of questions to ask.

15. Resources
Chappuis, J., & Stiggins. R.J. (2011). An introduction to student-involved assessment for learning. (6th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education.