Air Quality Lesson: Pollution and Health
Lesson Plan
50 minutesGrades3, 4, 5English Language Arts, Health
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Written by Emiliano Amaro, Lindsey Pockl
About this lesson
In this lesson, students learn how to analyze story characters, reread Why Is Coco Orange?, and complete a journal entry.
Inquire: Students learn about and practice identifying character traits.
Investigate: Students reread Why Is Coco Orange? and focus on how the characters support Coco.
Inspire: Students identify character traits in Coco and Coco's friends. Then, students complete a journal entry, choosing one of three provided options.
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Everything you need to teach it
How to edit these materials (video)Teaching tips
Suggestions
- Teachers can use the Second Read Aloud guide in the Teacher Document and the character trait template during the read aloud.
- This lesson allows students to explore their own personality traits and relate them to the characters in the story.
- Students can act out characteristics in the Inquire section after analyzing the GIFs and identifying the characteristics.
- The character trait practice slides can be duplicated for more guided, independent, or partner practice. Students can pick characters from other classroom reads or well-known movies, shows, books, or other school-appropriate media.
Prerequisites
- This is lesson 2 of 5 in our 3rd-5th grade Air Quality unit.
- Students should be familiar with the vocabulary in the story. You can use the vocabulary words slideshow with your students to review the words or play games with the words.
- Analyzing the characters from familiar books and movies is an easy way for students to begin practicing character analysis.
- Teachers can print out a list of grade-appropriate character traits with images for students to refer to. Additionally, this could be posted in the classroom as an anchor chart for students to identify feelings and characteristics in themselves and others.
Differentiation
- Suggestions for English Language Learners are included in the speaker notes of the Teacher Slideshow along with sentence starters.
- Teachers can choose to read the book aloud, watch the video, read aloud as a class, or have students read the story independently or in groups.
- Teachers can print the vocabulary cards for students who need to refer to them during the read aloud.
- Students can complete the other options with extra time or for homework.
- Students who finish early could conduct more research on ozone and its impact on the respiratory system.
- Students can interview someone they know who has asthma, asking them to share their story and the impacts of asthma.
- The end of the Teacher Slideshow includes an option for a group to write a letter to the author of the book and mail it to the EPA.
From the scientist review
This lesson lets students learn about air quality, how to analyze characters in a story, and how to tell a story about the impact of air quality on human health. This lesson has passed the science review process and is recommended for teaching.
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About the teacher writers
Emiliano Amaro
3-5 ELD and ELA Teacher
Emiliano Amaro holds a Bachelor's degree in Society and Environment from the University of California, Berkeley and a Master of Education from the UCLA Teacher Education Program. He has been teaching since 2020 and has six years of experience in elementary education, middle school English, and middle school mathematics. Emiliano holds a California Multiple Subject Teaching Credential and specializes in social and environmental justice through interdisciplinary teaching and environmental education.
Lindsey Pockl
Lindsey worked with SubjectToClimate to develop accompanying materials for lesson plans for grades 3-12.
