Inquiry Lesson Plan Template (with Four Ways of Thinking

connection)
Teacher: Meghan Blankenship
Content & Title:
Grade Level:
SCN400- Shelton
Sustainability
4th
Poverty: Is There
Anymore?
Standards:
AZCC: Stand 1. Concept 4. PO 3. Communicate with other groups or
individuals to compare the results of a common investigation.
ISTE: Standard 2: Communication and collaboration- Students use digital
media and enviornments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at
a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of
others.
Objectives (Explicit & Measurable):
The students will be able to communicate with others about the
difference in M&Ms they received and write a paragraph on the
website blog about their feelings and findings after the activity.
Evidence of Mastery (Measurable Assessment: formative and summative):
(formative) Walking around and observing student responses.
(summative) Writen paragraph summary on the website blog.
Sub-objectives, SWBAT (steps that lead to completion of objective; sequence from
simple to more complex):

The students will be able to count the number of M&Ms in their bowl
Collaborate with peers on thoughts and ideas
Write a paragraph in website blog about what they have concluded from the
activity.
Lesson Summary and Justification: (summary gives detailed information about what
students are doing. Justification why is this lesson being taught)

During this lesson the students will be enaging in an activity where I given them
uneven amounts of M&Ms into their bowls. Once the students have their M&Ms
I will have them begin by making graphs of each color they have (this should
represent resources that the students are given in life). After graphing we will
talk about what each color represents (i.e. Red= Money. Blue= food, etc). Once
we have labeled each color with its representation I will generate a discussion
and ask students to raise their hands and tell me how they felt during the
lesson/ their ideas. We will generate a class summary, then students will go
online to the website and create a blog post about what they have learned from
the lesson. This lesson incorpirates values and systems thinking throughout,
because the students will see that what they value may not be the same as
someone elses values, and systems because they will see that all those systems
(aka the different colors) are all apart of life/ poverty.
Background Knowledge: (What do students need to know prior to completing this
lesson)
Students must know what poverty is and will get knowledge of the topic through a book reading
at the beginning of the lesson.
Misconception: (what possible misleading thoughts might students have?)

Possible misconceptions that students may have is that poverty only affects a
person by means of money.
Process Skills: (what skills are you introducing or reinforcing)
Citical thinking and analzing

Four Ways of Thinking connection: (Provide a complete explanation of how your

lesson plan connects to futures, system, strategic, or values thinking. Define the way of
thinking you selected and used in this lesson plan. Remember, this should be included
meaningfully in the lesson plan.)
During the lesson the two ways of thinking that I have incorpirated into the lesson os values
thinking and systems thinking. During the lesson the students will see how their own values/
thing they value may not be the same to other within the class. The students will analyze their
values and see that some may not be as valued on a whole scale picture. Also, this lesson will
incorpirate systems thinking because the students will see how different systems affect peoples
lives that live in poverty each day.
Safety: (what safety rules and items need to be addressed?)
DO NOT EAT M&Ms UNTIL TOLD TO DO SO.

Inquiry Questions: (testable in the here and now.)

1. (to explore) What is poverty and how does it affect a persons life?
2. (to elaborate) What are ways in which we can help aliveate poverty locally?
Key vocabulary: (list and define)
Materials: (list item and possible
1. Poverty2. Alliveate3. Below Poverty Level-

quantity)
1. Lives Turned Upside Down by Jim
Hubbard
2. Bag of M&Ms
3. Bowls for each student
4. Computers
5. Science Notebook of each student.

Engage - In this section you should activate prior knowledge, hook student
attention, pose a question (IQ#1) based on your lesson objective that students
will seek to answer in Explore.
Teacher Will: (hook)
Students Will:
IQ#1: What is Poverty?
Listen to the story being read.
Begin by reading aloud Lives Turned
Think about what they are
Upside Down to the class.
listening to.
After reading, have a small
Participate in whole class
discussion/reflection about what was
discussion/reflection.
read about children homelessness.
Best Teaching Practice Strategy/Differentiation/ELL and Teacher Notes

If students do not understand/ get the main idea during class discussion have
students pair up with one another to talk about poverty in general and think of
instances where they may have seen poverty/ and how it made them feel.

Explore - In this section students should take the lead and actively use materials
to discover information that will help them answer the question posed in
Engage. Teachers may choose to give steps to follow, especially for younger students,
but the goal is for students to discover some or all of the sub-objectives of the lesson.
Teacher Will: (pose IQ #1)
Students Will: (list all steps)
Pose IQ #1: What is Poverty? How does is
Think about the question
affect a persons life?
posed and how it relates to
Pass out a bowl to each student, and by
the book read during the
random handfulls/ small handfulls given
Engage section.
each student an amount of M&Ss.
Have Students count their M&Ms and
Count their M&Ms that are in
make a grpah of the different colored
their bowls.
M&Ms each student has in their science
Make a graph and label the
notebooks.
colors as the classes
Then as a class we will think of some
representations.
things that are valued for most of the
class and label the different colors
Participate when asked.
according to their values (I.E. Red=
Listen to peers ideas and
Money, Blue = food, Green= Shelter/
thoughts.
home, etc.)

Best Teaching Practice Strategy/Differentiation/ELL and Teacher Notes

If students are not able to think of different values that they have in their lives, then I
will provide the labels for the colors.

Explain In this section students share what they discovered, teacher connects
student discoveries to correct content terms/explanations, students
articulate/demonstrate a clear and correct understanding of the lesson sub-objectives
by answering the question from Engage before moving on.
Teacher Will:
Students Will:
After the activity I will conduct a whole
Enage in class discussion.
class discussion/ reflection of the
Engage in pair and share
activity.
activity.
I will pose questions like How did that
Listen to peers thoughts and
make you feel Jimmy when Mark had
more M&Ms? What does it mean to
ideas.
have more M&Ms Susan? How do the
Come up with their own
different representations affect the
thoughts and ideas.
whole amount of M&Ms? Etc.

Then I will ask the students to pair up

and think of instances where they have
seen poverty in their lives.

Best Teaching Practice Strategy/Differentiation/ELL and Teacher Notes

If students are not able to think of an instance I will give them my example of when I
saw a homeless family on the streets of L.A. and gave them food and water.

Elaborate In this section students take the basic learning gained from Explore and
clarified in Explain and apply it to a new circumstance or explore a particular aspect of
this learning at a deeper level. Students should be using higher order thinking in this
stage. A common practice in this section is to ask a What If? question. IQ #2
Teacher Will: (pose IQ #2)
Students Will:
IQ #2: What are ways in which we can help to
Go onto website, find mission
alliviate poverty locally? What if there are
statement and read it to
ways?
themselves.
UMOM is a place dear and near to my

Bring in gently used clothes to

heart, I can remember when I was your
age I would go and voluteer at the
donate on Friday.
shelter and it would always uplift my
Begin to think about what
spirit.
they will write in their letter to
Show students the UMOM website,
a person who lives in the
https://www.umom.org/getshelter.
involved/donate/ways-to-give/ , and
challenge them to each bring some old
Patriciate and listen to peers
gently used clothes to donate.
ideas and thoughts.

At the end of the week we will take the

donations down to UMOM and have
students write letter to the people
there.

Best Teaching Practice Strategy/Differentiation/ELL and Teacher Notes

If students do not have anything to bring in to donate I will supply their
donation of clothing.
Evaluate In this section every student demonstrates mastery of the lesson
objective (though perhaps not mastery of the elaborate content). Because this also
serves as a closing, students should also have a chance to summarize the big
concepts they learned outside of the assessment.
Teacher Will:
Students Will:
Have students write a
Write a paragraph on the
paragraph on the website blog
website blog about what they
talking about what they have
have learning/ how they feel
learned in the lesson.
after the lesson.

Read two other peers blog posts

and reply to them online, or in
science notebooks at home for
homework.

Reply to two peers blog post

whether it be online or in
science notebook.
Participate and listen to other
peers.

Closure: (revisit objective, IQs and make real world connections)

Have students and myself go to UMOM and drop off donations, take a tour, and write letters
to the people who live in the shelter.

**Best Practices List the Best Teaching Practices you will use to enhance
the learning outcomes. In each section where prompted, list the best
practice, how the practices will be used and the purpose.