Teaching Elementary School Social Studies
Taught by Christy Keeler, Ph.D.
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Example Interdisciplinary Unit Plan
Weather Unit
Grade Eight

Day/Topic
 Geography
 Math
 English
 Science
 Explorations
Monday:

What Makes the Weather?
  • Distinguish weather and climate
  • "Grass under Glass" (p. 12) (Transpiration)
  • History of Weather
    • "Folklore and the Weather"
  • Have students choose a radio show topic
  • HW: Cut-out weather-related news article
  • Introduce weather using charts and graphs
  • Explain Farenheit scale
  • Show where temperatures are found in the newspaper
  • Integers
  • HW: Work on weather chart (LasVegas, Central America, South America)
  • Introduce portfolio
  • "Windblown Poetry" (p. 23)
  • Researching the radio show topic
  • Sky awareness names
  • Lecture or class reading
    • "What Makes the Weather" (pp. 4-6)
  • "Balloons Around the Sun" (p. 9) (Earth's relationship to the sun)
  • Inroduce unit
  • "The Weather Game" (p. 13) (Using acrostics to describe the sun, Earth, air, and water)
  • HW: "Drippy Tales" (p. 14) (Watere cycle maze)
Tuesday:

Air on the Move
  • "Follow the Front" (p. 21)
  • HW: Radio show question
  • Translating between Kelvin, Farenheit, and Celsius
  • Integers and fractions
  • "The Weather Master Myth" (p. 7)
  • "Weather Watchers of the Past" (pp. 36-37)
  • "Air on the Move" (pp. 15-17)
  • "The Pressure is On"
  • "Warm Front Follies"
  • Make a rainstorm
Wednesday:

Mild and Wild Weather
  • Weather Stories (Earth2U)
  • HW: Radio show
  • Reading barometers and thermometers
  • Forecasting (Disc. # 3)
  • HW: Continue chart and begin graph
  • Wives' Tales and Weather (Project Wet)
  • "Weather Wise Riddles" (p. 34)
  • Class Demonstration: "Lightning on the Loose" (p. 35)
  • "Weather Wizard" (p. 32)
  • HW: Personality Inventory
Thursday:

Weather Watchers
  • "Say It with Symbols" (p. 39)
  • "First with the Forecast" (pp. 41-42)
  • Silent reading
  • Vocabulary
  • Video on Weather Watchers
  • "Fishy Forecasts" (p. 40)
Friday:

People and Weather
  • "Weagevia Weather Trivia Game" (pp. 57-58)
  • "What Do You Think?" (p. 53) (Surveying personal preferences)
  • Book Fair
  • "Lightning on the Loose" (p. 35)
  • "Make a Simple Weather Watcher" (p. 38)
  • "The Weather Zapper" (p. 54)
  • Video on El Nino
Monday:

Hurricanes
  • "Weather Scavenger Hunt" (p. 53)
  • Radio show due
  • "Feathered and Furry Forecasters" (p. 38)
  • "Make a Windsock" (p. 60)
  • "Weather Quiz" (p. 61)
Tuesday:

Hurricanes
  • Hurricanes, Act II
  • Hurricanes (National Geographic lesson plan)
  • Hurricanes, Acts III and IV
  • HW: Parent Evaluations due Friday
Wednesday
  • Time to organize portfolio



Thursday




Friday
  • Listen to radio shows
  • Peer portfolio evaluations



* Note: Page numbers are for lessons in Ranger Rick's NatureScope: Wild About Weather, ed. Judy Braus, National Wildlife Federation (1989).
E-Mail: Christy Keeler
Homepage: Christy Keeler