Symbolic Competence: Students will encode and decode information with relevant literacy activities through media (videos, projectors, TVs, computers), print (documents, graphs, maps), observing (presenters, videos), and spoken language (role play). Students will develop the ability to understand and learn by practicing and experiencing with these activities.

Discourse Forms: Students will investigate, interpret, and appreciate literacy discourse with 3 different role plays that involve a variety of occupations in a community. They will receive and process an overall message as they participate in all activities of this lesson. Students will also present data in Powerpoint, Word, graphs, and illustrations of information compiled from their community.

Cognitive Process: Students will be doing 3 role plays that represent good citizenship, geography, and government after watching videos on these topics. They will also have a social studies writing journal where they will annotate consequences and imperative concerns of their community. As a whole group, we will select certain topics to type in a word process document for future presentations. As an ongoing activity, students will have the task to identify significant buildings around our community whenever they have the opportunity to drive around with their parents. They will then shared their observations and discuss if these types of buildings are needed in their new community.

Organizing Problem: The year is 2040 and a new planet with identical characteristics as Earth has been discovered. Leaders around the world are selecting people to travel and establish communities in this new planet. A fortunate group among the chosen is number of individuals (the students) from south Texas. They are given the enormous task to establish a community in an area with a comparable geography to the Rio Grande Valley.

After erecting a couple of buildings, the group is ready to set the foundation for the new community. The group must now rely in their background knowledge and experience from the time they were citizens in the Rio Grande Valley. The problem is that they were sent to accomplish this task with no individual assignments or hierarchy to follow. The result is that everyone has different expectations for the community.

The anchor problem for this design is "Can you integrate as a group and identify components to a community?" "Can you apply your findings to accomplish the task of creating successful community in the new planet?" General Problem Solving Strategies: The anchor problem exposes student to use deductive reasoning, planning, executing, problem solving skills, creativity, exploration, collaboration, metacognition, and dialogue.

Disciplinary Structures: Students will be learning about expansion, creation of communities, identifying and meeting needs, past and present, and community changes resulting from individual or group decisions. Narratives- City Mayor, a Brownsville Historical Museum staff member, and a police officer will visit our class before initiating the project and inform of their duties as citizens of our community.

Disciplinary Processes: Students will use be using the problem solving process which include the following; identify and gather information, list and consider options, advantages and disadvantages, choosing, implementing and evaluating a solution. Use deductive reasoning and database searches.

Disciplinary Discourse: The students will present by participating in 3 role plays that demonstrate different characteristics of a community. Expository- factual descriptions of local community laws and regulations. Identifying community leaders and their tasks in our community. Technology- Students will use computers to type a list of their five favorite community leaders and in a few sentences explain their choices. They will also watch unitedstreaming video on communities and access the internet for further research.

Students will be using a variety of resources to garner, process, and comprehend the necessary data to accomplish their assigned task. They will be using the internet to search for information on communities, citizens, governments, and natural resources. They will have to confine their wording or phrasing in some of the topics in order to achieve more concise results. Students must have the knowledge and skills to read and understand maps. After using Google Maps to locate the Rio Grande Valley, they must correlate their data gathered by personal observations, questioning and elder, and the use of other printed maps to illustrate what kind of geography their community will have. They should be able to describe and demonstrate the characteristics of their new community by making the connection of all the information gathered.

Students will apply cognition skills to all the videos, readings, guest speaker presentations, and personal observations to accomplish the task of creating a successful community. They will use all the information acquired to identify the different roles of people in communities, the geographical features to their new community, and the roles and responsibilities of the government.

The students will be able understand and explain geographical features and other components of a community. They will identify diverse ways in how people work together to identify needs, solve problems, and accomplish shared interests. The end result will be a concise understanding of how to become good citizens that can participate with problems solving skills to achieve a consensus agreement.

Students will

• interact with students from other classes from campus and other schools

• interact with community leaders and have the opportunity to ask them questions

• process information from readings and videos

• apply their knowledge and research finding to the creation of their community

• participate and be active throughout the lesson as they will be in role plays

• have the ability to share ideas, findings, and experiences as they participate in their community

The class will participate via internet in a teacher created Blog site with other 3rd grade students from the school district as they too try to accomplish the establishment of a community. The students will present bi-weekly information (pictures, maps, ideas typed on word document) to other classes in our campus and to classes from other schools via internet. The information will demonstrate their progress and how they will apply the new data to the creation of their community.

(1.) The first main assignment is to understand peoples' role in a community. They will be working in groups and brainstorming in their social studies journal all they have learned on good practices of citizenship. They will be using all information from videos, textbook, level readers, fieldtrip, library visits, and quest presentations. The assignment is for them to collaborate in selecting the characteristics of being a good citizen and take turns typing in it in a word document. There will be a class discussion, workbook assignments, and quizzes at the end of this chapter.

(2.) The second main assignment will be to understand the geography in which they will create their community and identify possible natural resources to be used. Students will be using the information acquired when accessing the internet and using Google maps and other local maps. There will be a class discussion on what type of geography they will establish their community and what kind of activities they can practice. The students will work together in their respective groups and collaborate in a final drawing or construction sample of their community on a poster board.

Things to look for

• mountains, rivers, oceans, grasslands, hills, plateaus, valley, etc...

• farming, hunting, fishing, mining, etc...

Students are now ready to role play in their community the types of activities they can do to prosper.

• Students will be shown working out in the fields

• students will be shown deep sea fishing out in the ocean or nearby rivers

There will be a class discussion, workbook assignments, and quizzes at the end of this chapter.

(3.) The third main assignment consists of two tasks. The first is to collaborate in groups and illustrate the three branches of government. They will have to illustrate in a poster board what are the responsibilities of each branch and how the laws are passed. The second part is to collaborate and write down on their social studies journal the responsibilities that a local government must have in a community.

Things to look for

• Security for the people

• Development of streets and public parks

• An efficient educational system

• Health facilities

Further connections could be made to other subject areas throughout the year in the following ways;

• Health- What are some ways the community can help prevent the spread of a threatening virus.

• Math- If a community has a current population of 9,500 people and is increasing at a rate of 400 people per year. What will the population be in 6 years?

• Writing- The students could be assigned numerous journal entries during writing or morning journal time. How could you make a difference in your community? Where would you prefer to work in your community and why?

• Science- You understand that you live in a coastal community. What natural resources could you find? What kind of impact would these natural resources have on your community? There will be a class discussion, workbook assignments, and quizzes at the end of this chapter.

Introduction to Communities- The teacher asks the following questions; "Can you integrate as a group and identify components to a community?" "Can you apply your findings to accomplish the task of creating successful community in the new planet?"

The class will read Unit 1 Learning About Communities.

• Chapter 1 Communities are People Weeks 1-2

• Chapter 2 Communities are Places Weeks 3-4

• Chapter 3 People and their Local Government Week 5 Week 6 will be a cumulative review

The class will also read level reader books from Scott Foresman pearsonsuccess.net

• What it means to be a citizen

• Why we live where we live

• We are part of this place

The students will watch videos from http://www.discoveryeducation.com/

• "How Leaders and Events Change Communities" Ch-1

• "TLC Elementary School: Understanding Good Citizenship" Ch-1

• "City, Suburb, and Rural Communities" Ch-2 • "Economy in and between Communities" Ch-3

• "This is Your Government: Branches of Government" Ch-3

• "Local Community Government" video segment Ch-3

The students will also complete a K-W-L chart about our local community. A K-W-L chart is a graphical organizer designed to help in learning. The letters K-W-L are an acronym for "what we know", what we want to know, and "what we learned". A K-W-L table is typically divided into three columns titled Know, Want and Learned (Wikipedia).

K-W-L table (2009, February 4). In Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Retrieve July 19, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KWL_table

Students will visit the computer lab so that everyone has the experience of using Google maps while locating the Rio Grande Valley. Students will use the regular map, satellite, and terrain views. This will allow for students to get a better visual and understanding of the geography that surrounds our local communities.

Continuous vocabulary review each week.

The class will have guest speakers that will share their experiences and responsibilities

• City Mayor

• Executive Director from Brownsville Historical Museum

• A Police Officer

The students will have the task to identify significant buildings around our community whenever they have the opportunity to drive around with their parents. In addition, they will have to bring pictures of buildings and people that demonstrate how they are key components to the community. 

They can bring real pictures, magazines or newspaper cut outs, or their own drawings.

- stores, churches, restaurants, public parks, municipal court, hospitals, etc...

- police officer, firefighter, construction worker, doctor, etc...

Students will create a community in our classroom (pretending it’s the new planet) by selecting up to 10 important building structures. We will be creating 3 role plays demonstrating the newly established community in the new planet. The role plays will be shown to other classes in campus. Within their created community in the classroom, students will role play three different objectives to be applied in their created community.

• The first role play will be a demonstration of good citizenship practices in community.

     - Students will demonstrate good practices of citizens by putting the trash where it belongs.

     - Students will be shown throwing trash where it belongs and going into a recycle center.

     - Students will demonstrate why it is important to obey traffic signs.

• The second will be demonstrating characteristics (geography) of our community

     - students will be working out on the sea or in the farming fields.

• The third will show people at work in different government positions of the community.

     - Students will be dressed as police officers, firefighters, construction workers, and people working in the court.

The students' work and pictures will be posted on the class Blog to share the information and the progress of the lesson to other students in the school district. Our students will also have the chance to see what others have done and apply what they consider would be a good addition to their community. Pictures and work from our activities will be integrated by the teacher to create a photostory.

Publish students' role play podcast and bi-weekly reports to the class Blog.

Advertise to campus and participating schools the link to our Blog site.

Contact all class presenters and allow students to share their accomplishments.

KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS

(3.1) History. The student understands how individuals. events, and ideas have influenced the history of various communities. The student is expected to:

(A) describe how individuals, events, and ideas have changed communities over time

(3.2) History. The student understands common characteristics of communities, past and present.

The student is expected to:

(A) identify reasons people have formed communities, including a need for security, law and material well-being; and;

(B) compare ways in which people in the local community and communities around the world meet their needs for government, education, communication, transportation, and recreation, over time and in the present.

(4) Geography. The student understands how humans adapt to variations in the physical environment.

The student is expected to:

(A) describe and explain variations in the physical environment including climate, landforms, natural resources, and natural hazards;

(B) compare how people in different communities adapt to or modify the physical environment;

(C) describe the effects of physical and human processes in shaping the landscape; and

(D) identify and compare the human characteristics of selected regions.

(5) Geography. The student understands the concepts of location, distance, and direction on maps and globes.

The student is expected to:

(A) use cardinal and intermediate directions to locate places such as the Amazon River, Himalayan Mountains, and Washington D.C. on maps and globes;

(B) use a scale to determine the distance between places on maps and globes;

(C) identify and use the compass rose, grid, and symbols to locate places on maps and globes; and
(D) draw maps of places and regions that contain map elements including a title, compass rose, legend, scale, and grid system.

(3.3) History. The student understands the concepts of time and chronology.

The student is expected to:

(A) Use vocabulary related to chronology, including ancient and modern times and past, present, and future times;

(B) Create and interpret timelines; and

(C) Describe historical times in terms of years, decades, and centuries.

(3.11) Citizenship. The student understands the impact of individual and group decisions on communities in a democratic society.

The student is expected to

(A) Give examples of community changes that result from individual or group decisions;

(B) Identify examples of actions individuals and groups can take to improve the community; and

TECHNOLOGY

(3.16) Social studies skills. The student applies critical-thinking skills to organize and use information acquired from a variety of sources including electronic technology.

The student is expected to:

(A) Obtain information, including historical and geographic data about the community,using a variety of print, oral, visual, and computer sources;

(B) Sequence and categorize information;

(C) Interpret oral, visual, and print material by identifying the main idea, identifying cause and effect, and comparing and contrasting;

(D) Use various parts of a source, including the table of contents, glossary, and index, as well as keyword computer searches, to locate information;

(E) Interpret and create visuals including charts, tables, timelines, illustrations, and maps; and

KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS

(3.17) Social studies skills. The student communicates effectively in written, oral, and visual forms.

The student is expected to:

(A) Express ideas orally based on knowledge and experiences;

(B) Create written and visual material such as stories, poems, pictures, maps, and graphic organizers to express ideas; and

(3.18) Social studies skills. The student uses problem-solving and decision-making skills, working independently and with others, in a variety of settings.

The student is expected to:

(A) Use a problem-solving process to identify a problem, gather information, list and consider options, consider advantages and disadvantages, choose and implement a solution, and evaluate the effectiveness of the solution;