LESSON PLAN TEMPLATE Your Name: Melissa Myers Title of Lesson: The Poverty Cycle Grade: 7th grade

STANDARDS Social Studies 7.Srand 5.Concept 2.PO 8. Describe the governments investment in human capital: health, education, training of people CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.7.7 Conduct short research projects to answer a question, drawing on several sources and generating additional related, focused questions for further research and investigation. LESSON SUMMARY/OVERVIEW

The topic of this lesson is the effects of poverty in the community and schools and how they perpetuate one another. Students will create a poverty feedback loop that includes information to answer the question: How does poverty in the community lead to poverty in schools, and vice versa? They will use their prior knowledge to form the first half of the diagram, poverty in the community to poverty in schools. As a group the students will research how poverty in schools creates poverty in the community. They will then transfer all this information into their poverty feedback loop that they will create in their groups. They will then decide on two ways to interrupt this cycle for the better. Each student write a paragraph answering the question above.
OBJECTIVES Students will be able to (SWBAT) conduct research to create poverty feedback loop as a group and synthesize information to write a one paragraph answer to How does poverty in the community lead to poverty in schools, and vice versa? SWBAT create two possible solutions to break the feedback loop and provide justification for why this would change the cycle. ASSESSMENT/EVALUATION Group circular diagram will include: - 10 minimum (min.) items. o Each must include a one sentence definition and one sentence description on how it is related to the topic of poverty. o 3 min. will include a visual (picture) to connect it to the topic of poverty. - Each line connecting two items (a cause to an effect) must include one sentence in written justification on how they are related. - Visually appealing and easy to follow. - Use at least three outside sources and cite the data. - 1 min. way to break the poverty cycle before there is poverty in the school. - 1 min. way to break the poverty cycle after there is poverty in school, but before there is poverty in the community. Each student will individually write a one paragraph answer (5 sentences max) on how the information in the diagram answers the question, How does poverty in schools lead to poverty in the community, and vice versa? PREREQUISITE KNOWLEDGE -Students must know how to create a feedback loop. Discuss the circle of life example. -How poverty in the community affects the students who attend poverty stricken schools (parents schooling levels, preschool attendance, home responsibilities, homework help). Review day 1 activity during guided practice. -How schools receive funding: performance (national level), need level (title 1 funding), property taxes (state level). Review previous lesson during guided practice. -How race (home language) and Socio-economic status (SES) affects school policies. Review previous lesson during guided practice. MATERIALS Document: circle of life example

One poster board per group At least two computers per group Whiteboard Assessment /Evaluation Rubric VOCABULARY/KEY WORDS Circle of life Feedback loop Poverty in community Poverty in schools College readiness TEACHING PROCEDURES Opening: (5 minutes) Weve all watched the Lion King and sung the song, The Circle of Life, right? How many of you stopped to really think about what The Circle of Life means? I will give your group 2 minutes to define what the phrase circle of life means and come up with a visual to explain it to the class. Have them share their visuals and definitions. Instructional input: (10 minutes) Show the circle of life example, and make connections to their visuals they made. AskWhat do they all have in common? Introduce vocabulary, feedback loop. Explain that a feedback loop doesnt have to go in a perfect circle, but the key is that the effects have to eventually lead to the initial cause. Introduce the activity for the day: Read the objective (have it written on the board). Discuss the poverty feedback loop, making connection to circle of life example. Go over the question we will be answering. Explain that this is what should be guiding our poverty feedback loop. Guided Practice: (15 minutes) Write on the top of the whiteboard Poverty in the Community and at the bottom Poverty in Schools. As a class, list a few bullet points to help underneath of each to help define them, make sure to include more than just monetary things. As a class have them think of previous lesson and what weve already learned about how poverty in the community affects poverty in schools. List them on right side of the board (see prerequisite knowledge section). As a class have students predict what are some of the possible effects of poverty in schools that will lead to poverty in the community. List them on the left side of the board. Things to include: teacher quality, lack of materials, difficulty level of coursework, dropout/graduation rates, college attendance/graduation rates, college readiness, and AP/career courses. As a class have students brainstorm what are some of the necessary aspects of college readiness. Individual Practice: (1 hour 15 minutes) Provide the rubric and explain each component. Have students make a list, similar to what we brainstormed on the board of at least 10 items they will want to include in their poster feedback loop. Students will decided what topics they need to research to complete the project and each student will do research on one of them. They will then make an outline on paper of what their poster will look like and get it approved by the teacher. They will then be given their poster board to create their final poverty feedback loop. Conclusion/Reflection: (15 minutes) Ask the class: What were some ways you came up with to disrupt the feedback loop? How did thinking of poverty as a loop help you come up with these answers? What would you like to research more (this will connect to tomorrows lesson)? RESOURCES Foley, R. (2013). Pre/post test. Unpublished class document, School of Sustainability & Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ. WAYS OF THINKING CONNECTION Systems Thinking is being able to see a topic in a more complete and non-linear fashion. It is looking at multiple causes and effects, then continuing to follow these effects to see what they in turn will cause, and so on. It displays multiple relationships and interrelationships between system components. It can be done for just one topic or also how multiple topics interact with one another. Systems Thinking is directly related to this lesson plan because it requires the students to think about how poverty in a circular, non-linear fashion. It also requires students to define the relationships between components. Making students create a feedback loop also shows how poverty becomes self-sustaining, and helps students better address possible solutions. It shows that there are more factors at play then just investing more money.