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Annaliese Vander Baan

Lauren Newhuis
EDUC 305
Professor Devries
9 December 2014
Narrative
We have decided to focus our unit plan on The Community of Recycling. It
is intended for second graders, but can be adapted for all grades. The unit focuses on
social studies and the topics of garbage, recycling, and the community. Going into
the field of Special education, we decided that we really wanted to make this whole
unit plan adaptable for all studentsstudents ranging from the general education
classroom to students with cognitive impairments. The unit takes into account all of
the students learning styles and can be easily adapted to meet each students
individual needs.
The overarching Big Idea of our unit is the community of recycling. This is
important because in the second grade, students continue the integrative approach
to social studies through the context of the local community. This the first time
students are introduced to a social environment larger than their immediate
surroundings and they draw upon knowledge learned in previous grades to develop
more sophisticated understandings to explore the social studies disciplines of
history, geography, civics and government, and economics. Along with these
crossovers there are also many opportunities for students to develop in the crosscurricular subjects such as math, science, and ELA.
Our first lesson is called Garbage? Landfills? Whats the Problem? This
lesson ties into the Big Idea of our unit plan because it sets the stage for a why

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recycling is important. The thread and crossover that goes with this lesson is
geography. In 2nd grade, students typically start to fully grasp the idea of
consequences and in this lesson, student will begin to realize that throwing away
garbage can have a huge impact on the world around them. Students will learn how
much garbage the average person throws away each day, where trash goes after it is
thrown away, and how landfills can be harmful to the environment in a number of
ways. They will also use a map with symbols, representing landfills, schools,
business, etc. to find out the best possible route for a garbage man to take as she or
he makes all the stops. There is a mathematics crossover in this lesson as students
put their adding skills to the test! Students will be assessed formatively throughout
the lesson by walking around and asking questions. The summative assessment
through this unit is the final comic strip or poster that students make at the end of
the lesson.
The second lesson is called What is Recycling and How Does it Work? This
lesson is a continuation of the previous lesson and continues with the thread of
geography. We discussed the negative affect that landfills have on the community in
the previous lesson and for this lesson we want to see how we can bring positive
change by recycling. In order to empower students, we feel that they deserve to
know what is happening to the materials they are recycling. This helps with further
lessons: a debate on if it is worth it to recycle and informing others about why its
important to recycle. In this lesson, students will learn what recycling is and how it
works. This is a hands-on, interactive lesson that could get a little messy! Students
will also learn how to separate materials into the different categories for recycling.

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There is a science crossover within this lesson as students experiment with making
their own recycled paper. The pre-assessment for this lesson is to have students
separate different recyclable materials in the beginning of the lesson. This lesson
can be differentiated for students because there are many different means by which
information is being presented throughout it. For the summative assessment, the
teacher could lower the number of items in the bag. The teacher could also remove
all garbage items and just have the student separate only recyclable materials. The
teacher can also have the student only separate between recyclable and nonrecyclable.
The third lesson is called the History of Recycling in my Community with
the thread and crossover in History. This lesson ties into the Big Idea of our unit
plan because it focuses on the crucial history of recycling. Knowing the history of
recycling will help the students better understand why we are doing things the way
we are today. It will help them learn about how recycling has been a process that
has developed over many years. The GLCES content expectations focuses on
2nd grade and The local community." Students will learn that everything, including
recycling, has a history to it. The history helps us fully understand how something
works. The students will listen to a narrative about the "piggeries" in Grand Rapids
and the main events within the recycling history. The students will have pictures,
construction paper, and markers to follow along with the narrative. They will create
their own history timeline of Grand Rapids. For differentiation, students can write
their information on the timeline, use pictures given, or draw their own pictures.
Students can follow along with the reading by visually seeing it on the handout or

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can follow along through listening. The application on the iPad is also an option so
that students can do work with sensory.
The fourth lesson is called All This Recycling Business with the crossover in
Economics. This lesson ties into the Big Idea of our unit plan because it connects
what the students know about recycling to the local businesses. Students will gain a
deeper understanding of the impact their choices make on the environment. The
class will keep a list of choices made as a class throughout the day and what was
given up to make those choices. These decisions will be discussed and students will
learn about opportunity cost. The will learn about the decisions that they make
have costs and benefits, they must choose wisely where they shop and what they
buy. The summative assessment is done at the end of the lesson, when students
have to choose which side of the room they will move too. This can be differentiated
for those students with specific needs in the fact that they can be guided with a peer.
They can partner up with a peer and discuss with that peer.
The fifth lesson is called The Culture of Recycling and has a crossover in
both culture and ELA. This lesson ties into the Big Idea because it helps students
realize that there are many different beliefs and ideas about recycling. Students will
interview a grandparent, great-grandparent, or parent about if they recycle and why
or why not. The results from the interviews will be discussed and presented on,
showing that there are many different points of view about the same subject. The
students will be assessed on their presentations by using the rubric created. This
lesson can be easily adapted for those students who need accommodations.
Students will be working together for their presentations and one can assign groups

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according to what the teacher knows about their students. There is also multiple
means of expression in the fact that the students can choose how they would like to
present their material.
The sixth lesson is called Lets Debate which has a crossover in civics. This
helps students build a better understanding of recycling and the local community.
Students are actually seeing the different issues in their local community by doing
this debate. They have to think deeply about their own beliefs and this helps them
better understand if they agree or disagree with key issues in the community. In this
lesson, students will be prompted with a series of debatable situations (all about
recycling). Students must work with a group to figure out how they will present
their point of view and assess the conflict. They will have to communicate with their
peers and choose a reason why they agree or disagree with the issue. There are
multiple means of representation within the lesson because the students will hear
the information verbally, hear the readings from the book, see it physically within
the debate, and see images in the Lorax book. The students will be involved in
movement as well because they will physically be walking around the room and can
express themselves within the debate. This lesson is an entire summative
assessment because it shows if the students grasped the objectives of the unit and
could explain why they as individuals are important in the community.
The final lesson of our unit plan is called Be StewardsRecycling Club. This
lesson focuses on the crossover of public discourse within the recycling community.
Students will have the opportunities to freely discuss and open up to their peers
about the pros and cons of recycling within their school community. They are able to

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voice their opinions on recycling in the school through hand written letters. They
can talk about these issues as a class whole and discuss what things could be
improved with recycling in the school. The main point of this lesson is to open up
the doors and opportunity for students to discover their actions inside and outside
of school. The students learn about the importance and issues that recycling has
within our community. They are able to make connections to the issues that they
have already learned about in the previous lessons about the recycling community.
They are working on acting constructively to further the public good through their
actions of writing a letter to someone within the school community. This lesson can
once again be adapted for students with cognitive impairments. It focuses on the
multiple means of representation because the students hear the information
verbally, and see it visually and physically on poster boards. The students have the
opportunity to write their own pros and cons on the poster boards, which helps
them focus on their senses such as touching.
We expect that after this unit, our students will be able to understand and act
as stewards and responsible members in a community of recycling. We expect that
students will continue to use the recycling bins within the school and encourage
their families and friends outside of school to recycle. We expect that students will
be able to apply their understandings of the impact their choices make on the
environment and be able to live out what we put into practice in these lessons.