2 Grade Community Inquiry by Amy Krzoska

Are all communities the

same?

https://www.google.com/search?q=community&source=l..

Supporting Questions

1. What are the three types of communities?

2. What are important roles and responsibilities of citizens in a community?
3. What are the jobs within each community?

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 2 Grade Community Inquiry by Amy Krzoska

Are all communities the same?

SL. 2.1: Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about grade 2 topics and
texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.
Inquiry Standard
SL. 2.3: Ask and answer questions about what a speaker says in order to clarify comprehension,
gather additional information, or deepen understanding of a topic or issue.
Staging the
Compelling Are all communities the same?
Question

Supporting Question 1 Supporting Question 2 Supporting Question 3

What are the three types of What are important roles and What are the jobs within each
communities? responsibilities of citizens in a community?
community?
Formative Performance Task Formative Performance Task Formative Performance Task

1. Students will explore picture Civic or Personal Responsibility Semantic map of their own
books from the classroom and Activity community
identify images that represent their Interview Family Member About
assigned community. Career
2. Students will create a venn
diagram as a class to compare the
three communities from the picture
books that they explored.
Featured Sources Featured Sources Featured Sources

Source A: Country Kid, City Kid by: Source A: Last Stop on Market Source A: Look Where We Live!
Julie Cummins Source B: Types of Street Source B: Everyone Counts: Source B: Community Helpers
Community Map A Citizens' Number Book Source C:
Why We Vote

ARGUMENT
Using the groups from the first lesson, (1group suburban, 1 group rural, 1 group urban) each
group will create their own community using classroom resources to place buildings, and roads
where they think will be a location that allows for the greatest amount of people to have access
Summative to them. The students will have to decide where to place stop lights in their community to make
Performance Task sure that everyone is safe. They will create an ideal community that ensures the convenience
and safety of the citizens in that community.
EXTENSION
Groups will explain their community and compare and contrast them on the board using a t-
chart.
UNDERSTAND
Explain that each member of the community has a specific role in the community that keeps it
up and running.
ASSESS
Explain how citizens have responsibilities to their community and how they had to take on
responsibility when they created their own community.
Taking Informed
Action ACTION
In groups, students will take action by cleaning their community or by participating in a
community program. This will occur during a social studies lesson during the school day so that
the teacher is able to attend with the students. Before going out into the community, students
will recall why they are going to participate in a project that sustains their community. They will
learn early on that they have a responsibility to keep their community clean and safe for
everyone, even though they cannot participate in voting like their parents can.

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Overview

Inquiry Description

In this lesson students will explore common characteristics of a community. They will also identify how they
are alike and different using a venn diagram that they create as a group. Beyond the characteristics of a
community, the students will also identify the role of citizens in their community, such as voting and
following the law. They will identify why they are important and will realize that their community would not
be able to function without everyone fulfilling their duty.

Structure
1. What are the three types of communities? Students build base knowledge about what the three types of
communities are and what features they each contain by doing group research and exploration.

2. What are important roles and responsibilities of citizens in a community? Students will differentiate
between civic and personal responsibilities that citizens have within each community .

3.What are the jobs within each community? Students will interview family members to become familiar
with community jobs and roles, and share out with their classmates.

The inquiry produces a story of community, through books, maps, videos, design tools and models that tells
the story of each type of community in the world around us.

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 Staging the Compelling Question
Compelling Are all communities the same?
Question

Staging the compelling question

In a whole group discussion, students will brainstorm the features of each community and with guidance
from the teacher they will learn that there is a suburban, urban and rural community. Students will then be
broken up into three groups (1 for each type of community) and begin researching their assigned topic by
internet exploration and reading books in the library. Students will collect information for their assigned
community and use it to contribute to the class venn diagram. In addition, the students can take a walking
field trip with the teacher (and parent permission) around the school community. The teacher will encourage
the students to observe what the houses look like, what the streets look like and anything else that catches
their attention. She will also encourage them to listen for any sounds that could describe that particular
community. They will make observations about what features they see to decide if all communities are the
same. Then the teacher will introduce the other two communities to continue to develop the students
thinking. She will ask the students what they know about a suburban community and a rural community and
will lead a group discussion from there.

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 Supporting Question 1
Supporting What are the three types of communities?
Question
1. Students will explore picture books from the classroom and identify images that represent
Formative their assigned community.
Performance Task 2. Students will create a venn diagram as a class to compare the three communities from the
picture books that they explored.

Source A: Country Kid, City Kid by: Julie Cummins

Featured Sources
Source B: Types of Community Map

There are three main types of communities in the world around us, urban, suburban, rural. An urban
community is a big city or town. They are often busy and crowded and the most central location in a region. A
suburban community is more of a residential area located on the edge of an urban area. It is located outside
of a city. A rural area is often farm land with the people living very far apart from each other. A rural area has
few buildings and homes. Students will explore what the three types of communities are and will compare
and contrast them to each other.

Formative Performance Task

Students will first classify their community as urban, rural or suburban individually. They will read these
picture books and online resources to help them understand what each type of community looks like. Using
illustrations from picture books, students will identify the characteristics of these three types of
communities. While the students are working on finding out characteristics, the teacher will be walking
around making sure that the students have identified their community correctly. The teacher will probe
students to think about who lives in their community, who works in their community and what stores, parks
and landmarks are in their community. As a large group they will share out what they found in their books
and then compete a class venn diagram with their ideas. The teacher will draw a venn diagram with the
words rural, suburban, and urban in each circle. The students will then share what community they live in
and what makes their community unique.

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 Supporting Question 1
Featured Source A Country Kid, City Kid by: Julie Cummins

http://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-8050-6467-4

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 Supporting Question 1
Featured Source B Types of Community Map

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/21/rural-urb..

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 Supporting Question 2
Supporting What are important roles and responsibilities of citizens in a community?
Question
Formative Civic or Personal Responsibility Activity
Performance Task

Source A: Last Stop on Market Street

Featured Sources Source B: Everyone Counts: A Citizens' Number Book
Source C: Why We Vote

Citizens have the responsibility to vote and and follow the law. They will learn that people who live in a
community are citizens and have responsibilities to the community just like the student has responsibilities.
Students will learn about organization of local governments and some of the things governments do.

Formative Performance Task

Working in a group, students will be given a list to identify responsibilities as personal or civic. The list will
include cleaning up their room, helping to clean up a river, doing homework, picking up trash, going to school,
brushing teeth teeth, and voting. They will learn what their responsibilities are to themselves and to their
community. They will also be able to connect this to other members of their community. As the students work
in their groups, the teacher will walk around and look over the students shoulders to make sure that they
understand what a civic and personal responsibility are. To help the students, the teacher will have the
definition of a civic responsibility on the board and the definition of a personal responsibility on the board.
The students will then have to discuss with each other why they think that each responsibility is either civic
or personal.

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 Supporting Question 2
Featured Source A Last Stop on Market Street

http://mattdelapena.com/books/last-stop-on-market-..

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 Supporting Question 2
Featured Source B Everyone Counts: A Citizens' Number Book

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/everyone-counts-el..

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 Supporting Question 2
Featured Source C Why We Vote

Excerpt
The students will watch this video to understand why students in Milwaukee think we vote. They will gain a
better understanding of the importance of voting to make sure that their voice is heard. They will also learn
that voting is a major responsibility of the citizens in their community.

Source:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmK5jO7yigk

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 Supporting Question 3
Supporting What are the jobs within each community?
Question
Formative Semantic map of their own community
Performance Task Interview Family Member About Career

Source A: Look Where We Live!

Featured Sources
Source B: Community Helpers

Students will be able to identify different important members of a community. Most of the jobs overlap,
however, farmers, office workers, and landscapers are unique to their individual community. They will learn
about doctors, garbagemen, librarians, mechanics, cashiers and many more. All of these jobs make the
community run smoothly. The students will also learn where in the community these people are from and
where they work. Everyone in the neighborhood has a job to do to make it a great community to live in.

Formative Performance Task

To begin this lesson, I will introduce to students what a semantic map is. I will show them an example of what
mine would look like with myself at the center and all of the members of my community around me. Mine
would include other teachers, neighbors, grocery clerks, and garbage men to start. The teacher will then
encourage the students to create their own semantic map starting with themselves at the center. Students
will come up with as many people as they can in class and will be able to take their map home to add to it as
they see members of their community around. Once they return to class, they will then share who they put on
their semantic map out loud and will take note of any similarities and differences that they came up with in
each community. They will create a venn diagram on the board that allows them to identify similarities and
differences between their communities. Students will also either interview a family member about their
career, or do independent research on a career of their choice. They will find out what skills they need for
that job, who they work with and where they work along with anything else they find interesting about that
job. They will then come back to class and make a one page book to contribute to the whole class book that
will be made on all of the different careers they learned about. The teacher will share the completed book
with the class so students can hear about all the different jobs their peers family members have.

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 Supporting Question 3
Featured Source A Look Where We Live!

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/p/look-where-we-live..

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 Supporting Question 3
Featured Source B Community Helpers

Excerpt
Students will watch this video on jobs that members of their community have. They will learn about the
characteristics of many different jobs and where they take place. They will discuss with a partner anything
that they learned and did not know before. They will also use this knowledge to help them form their
community in the summative assessment.

Source:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dCe6kWYFvk

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 Summative Performance Task
Compelling
Are all communities the same?
Question
Using the groups from the first lesson, (1group suburban, 1 group rural, 1 group urban) each
group will create their own community using classroom resources to place buildings, and roads
where they think will be a location that allows for the greatest amount of people to have access
Argument
to them. The students will have to decide where to place stop lights in their community to make
sure that everyone is safe. They will create an ideal community that ensures the convenience
and safety of the citizens in that community.
Groups will explain their community and compare and contrast them on the board using a t-
Extension
chart.

Argument

The small groups will create their community that they researched in the first lesson using a flattened
cardboard base as their land. Groups will need to include streets, buildings, homes and anything unique to
their community using classroom materials. (cardboard, milk containers, egg cartons, tissue boxes, legos etc.)
They will need to collaborate with each other to decide where to place specific buildings, and roads to make
their community as successful as it can be.

Extension
Each group will be given 5 minutes to present their community. They will have to describe why they chose to
put specific buildings and streets in and why they put them where they did. They will also have to share with
the group if they experienced any disagreement for where to put the buildings and how they came to a
compromise.

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 Taking Informed Action
Explain that each member of the community has a specific role in the community that keeps it
Understand
up and running.
Explain how citizens have responsibilities to their community and how they had to take on
Assess responsibility when they created their own community.
In groups, students will take action by cleaning their community or by participating in a
community program. This will occur during a social studies lesson during the school day so that
the teacher is able to attend with the students. Before going out into the community, students
Action
will recall why they are going to participate in a project that sustains their community. They will
learn early on that they have a responsibility to keep their community clean and safe for
everyone, even though they cannot participate in voting like their parents can.

Students will go out into the community and participate in civic duties that are taking place in their
community. (recycling, cleaning up litter). Students will learn that each community is unique and important.
That in order to keep it clean and in the best condition for everyone, they will have to clean up and participate
in activities to sustain it.

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