STEPP Lesson Plan Form

Teacher: Mrs. Light-Kovacs

10/15/15
School:
Thompson Valley High school
Geography

Date:
Grade Level: 10th Content Area:

Title: Australian Landscapes and Animals

Content Standard(s) addressed by this lesson:

directly from the standard)

Lesson #:_1_ of _2_

(Write Content Standards

2.1. Use different types of maps and geographic tools to analyze features on Earth
to investigate and solve geographic questions.
2.3 The interconnected nature of the world, its people and places
Understandings: (Big Ideas)
Students will understand the variety of landscapes within Australia and their
relationships with humans. Students will also gain an understanding of the unique
animals of Australia. Students will also understand the environmental impacts of
human activities to Australia's fauna.
Inquiry Questions: (Essential questions relating knowledge at end of the unit of
instruction, select applicable questions from standard)
How might the physical geography of Earth change in the future?
What are the maximum limits of human activity the environment can withstand
without deterioration?
What predictions can be made about human migration patterns?
Evidence Outcomes: (Learning Targets)
Every student will be able to: (Create your own lesson objectives from the
standard, follow the ABCD format, using student voice)
I can:
1. I can recognize where people may choose to settle and build cities...
2. I can recognize a variety of animals unique to Australia...
3. I can come up with different solutions to protect the coral reefs...
This means:
1. which means that I understand how physical geography impacts where humans
live.

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STEPP Lesson Plan Form

2. this means that the relationship between animals and Australia's geography is
understood.
3. this means that different perspectives can shape solutions to reducing damage to
the environment.
List of Assessments: (Write the number of the learning target associated with
each assessment)
A. Information/Worksheet addressing animals and biomes in Australia: Learning
Targets associated with assignment, 1 and 2.
B. Information/Worksheet addressing the Great Barrier Reef and how to possibly
prevent degradation: Learning Target associated with assignment, 3.

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STEPP Lesson Plan Form

Planned Lesson Activities

Name and Purpose of Lesson
Should be a creative title for you and the
students to associate with the activity.
Think of the purpose as the mini-rationale
for what you are trying to accomplish
through this lesson.
Approx. Time and Materials
How long do you expect the activity to
last and what materials will you need?
Anticipatory Set
The hook to grab students attention.
These are actions and statements by the
teacher to relate the experiences of the
students to the objectives of the lesson,
To put students into a receptive frame of
mind.
To focus student attention on the
lesson.
To create an organizing framework
for the ideas, principles, or
information that is to follow
(advanced organizers)
An anticipatory set is used any time a
different activity or new concept is to be
introduced.
Procedures
(Include a play-by-play account of what
students and teacher will do from the
minute they arrive to the minute they
leave your classroom. Indicate the length
of each segment of the lesson. List actual
minutes.)
Indicate whether each is:
-teacher input

Landscapes, Animals, and Reefs, Oi Mate!

We expect the activity to last approximately 90 min.

Students will be spend a 2 minutes silent thinking about a physical map
of Australia, then pair up with pre determined groups, discuss, then
share as a class. We will then ask the following questions:
What is this map? Significance of brown spots? Of Green? What can you
infer?

First 5min: Will take care of any "house keeping" tasks addressing
questions about work from the previous class and any questions related
outside of the current topic we will be looking. Students should be
writing down the learning target and our Talon for the day.
7 min: We will let the students know what their task will be with our
first content slide (anticipatory set) and then have them follow through
with the anticipatory set. WHOLE CLASS PRACTICE
15 min: Both Jon and Marcelo will go through our direct instruction
portion of the lesson, this part focuses on the different biomes in

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STEPP Lesson Plan Form

-modeling
-questioning strategies
-guided/unguided:
-whole-class practice
-group practice
-individual practice
-check for understanding
-other

Australia. This portion segways into the information/worksheet about

animals. TEACHER INPUT and QUESTIONING STRATEGIES
30 min: Students will start working through the Information/worksheet
through this time. We will ask students to tweet on the whiteboard after
they get to question 3. Jon and Marcelo will be addressing the needs of
the students during this time answering their questions and guiding
them through their learning. TEACHER INPUT, INDIVIDUAL PRACTICE,
and CHECK FOR UNDERSTANDING.
25 min: After the students complete their first Information/worksheet,
they will begin another one on the Great Barrier Reef and its decline.
Once again Jon and Marcelo will address student questions and their
other needs during this time as well. TEACHER INPUT, INDIVIDUAL
PRACTICE, and CHECK FOR UNDERSTANDING.
3 min: Class will share some of their tweets. CHECK FOR
UNDERSTANDING
3 min: Class will share their solutions to the Great Barrier Reef issue.
CHECK FOR UNDERTANDING
2 min: Any last housekeeping issues that may have popped up
throughout the activity will be addressed and students will be released.

Closure
Those actions or statements by a teacher
that are designed to bring a lesson
presentation to an appropriate conclusion.
Used to help students bring things
together in their own minds, to make
sense out of what has just been taught.
Any Questions? No. OK, lets move on is
not closure. Closure is used:
To cue students to the fact that
they have arrived at an important
point in the lesson or the end of a
lesson.
To help organize student learning
To help form a coherent picture and to
consolidate.

Closure will happen by exploring the different tweets that the students
wrote on the board explaining an animal's experience in Australia. We
will also explore their solutions to the environmental problems
concerning the Great Barrier Reef. These solutions come from a variety
of perspectives and will show a different understanding of the situation.

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STEPP Lesson Plan Form

Differentiation
To modify: If the activity is too advanced
for a child, how will you modify it so that
they can be successful?
To extend: If the activity is too easy for a
child, how will you extend it to develop
their emerging skills?

Assessment
How will you know if students met the
learning targets? Write a description of
what you were looking for in each
assessment.

As far as the animal and landscape worksheets go we provided fairly

simple readings so that the majority of students could understand.
Some vocabulary words were turned into simpler terms so that students
would understand, the focus was on thinking about the information and
how that fit into the geography not just information about the animals.
Books with visuals were also provided for students that were more
visual learners. As far as developing emerging skills Jan and Marcelo
can hopefully touch base with every student and if they notice a
student needs to be challenged a little more they will ask for more
evidence in their answer.
We will go through their answers both while they are answering the
worksheet and after they are done with the activity. We want to first see
if the students completed the worksheet to see if there may have been
motivation or timing issues. Then a far as content goes we would want
to see that the students answered the questions correctly. The closure
also provides a oral assessment because students can elaborate on
their answers through discussion.

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STEPP Lesson Plan Form

Post Lesson Reflection

1. To what extent were lesson objectives achieved? (Utilize
assessment data to justify your level of achievement)
Our students seemed to understand their tasks for the initial
worksheet. Students showed they understood the information by
answering the questions accurately. The second worksheet had more
varied results, we did not take the time to help transition into the
second worksheet and many students seemed to only get through the
first few questions before having more trouble.

2. What changes, omissions, or additions to the lesson would

you make if you were to teach again?
We would over prepare instead of not having enough to do for the
students. We did not really take into account the fact that many
students can finish their work at large of variety of times and this
caused some students to have some idle time before our host teacher
helped sponge up the time left over for some students.

3. What do you envision for the next lesson? (Continued practice,

reteach content, etc.)
I think we would review the coral reef worksheet in class due to the
different stages that the students were in by the end of class. This
could then segway into a discussion on the economies of the different
countries in Oceania and address the resources available to the
different countries. Tourism with the Coral reef would lead us into
talking about the economies.

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