Unit Outline Template

6th Grade Science

UNIT TOPIC AND LENGTH:
Climate and Weather
Unit Length: 1 week
COMMON CORE CONTENT STANDARDS:
S6E4. Students will understand how the distribution of land and oceans
affects climate and weather.
a. Demonstrate that land and water absorb and lose heat at different
rates and explain the resulting effects on weather patterns.
BIGIDEAS/ENDURING
UNDERSTANDINGS:

ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS:

The big ideas are how land and

oceans affect our climate and
weather. Another big idea is the
understanding Global Warming
and its effects on todays world.
They will understand Key Terms
(Climate,
Weather,
Land,
Ocean)
Understand
how
Warming works

Global

Understand
the
connection
between humans, climate and
global warming
Understand
what
changes
contribute to climate and
weather
Understand factors in their
community that contribute to
climate, weather, and global
warming

Misunderstandings that I intend

to come across are how
humans are directly effecting
global warming on such a large

What things in your community

do you see that contribute to
Global Warming?
How can things such as politics
effect global warming?

scale. I also anticipate

misunderstandings in how land
and water directly effect
climate

CONTENT:
Students will know the basic
facts about climate, weather,
weather cycles (water cycle),
global warming, and how they
all interact.
Facts about climate, weather,
cycles, and key terms
associated with these subjects.

VOCABULARY/KEY TERMS:
ADIABATIC
AIR

HEATING/COOLING

MASS

ATMOSPHERE
ATMOSPHERIC

PRESSURE

CLIMATE
COLD

FRONT

CONVECTIONAL
CORIOLIS

RAINFALL

FORCE

DEPRESSION
GEOGRAPHICAL
GLOBAL

MODEL

WARMING

GREENHOUSE
HADLEY

CELL

LATENT

HEAT

GAS

LATITUDE
OROGRAPHIC

RAINFALL

SKILLS:
Writing and research skills will
be accomplished after this unit
plan.
Students will use social activism
and writing skills to write a letter
to the representative
Students will be able to use
research skills to understand
different environments and what
is happening there
Students should be able to use
deduction skills to figure out the
connections between land, water
and climate

 PARTICULATE
POLAR

POLLUTION

CELL

PREVAILING
ROSSBY

WIND

WAVES

SAVANNA
SUBTROPICAL

HIGH PRESSURE

TEMPERATE
TRADE

WINDS

TROPICAL

REVOLVING STORM

TROPOSPHERE
WARM

FRONT

WEATHER
ASSESSMENT

THE HOUR-BY-HOUR STATE OF THE ATMOSPHERE IN ANY ONE PLACE

EVIDENCE AND ACTIVITIES:

CASE STUDIES OF AREAS WHERE THE

EFFECT LAND, ANIMALS, CLIMATE?

OCEAN IS STEADILY RISING- HOW DOES THAT

GROUP

PROJECT OF RESEARCHING AREA IN NEED TO ENVIRONMENTAL HELP- HOW

ARE THE KEY TERMS WE HAVE ESTABLISHED INTERACTING TOGETHER- HOW CAN IT
BE FIXED?

WRITING

A LETTER TO A LOCAL STATE OFFICIAL EXPLAINING WHAT IS HAPPENING

IN THE ENVIRONMENT (RELATE IT BACK TO S6E4. STUDENTS WILL UNDERSTAND
HOW THE DISTRIBUTION OF LAND AND OCEANS AFFECTS CLIMATE AND WEATHER.

INITIAL ASSESSMENT : KWL CHART ON WHAT STUDENTS KNOW, WANT TO

KNOW AND THE POST ASSESSMENT WILL BE THE LAST PART OF THE CHART
LEARNED

FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT: END

OF THE UNIT TEST ON ALL KEY TERMS AND IDEAS

FINAL PERFORMANCE TASK: GROUP

PROJECT RESEARCHING THE ENVIRNMENTAL

AREA IN DANGER AND HOW THEY CAN SAVE THAT AREA

LEARNING PLAN & ACTIVITIES:

There will be direct instruction from the teacher about the key terms
as well as how the cycles work and how weather and climate
interact with the key terms. There will also be videos for the
students to walk them through the cycles. There will also be a web
chart to see the interactions between all of these ideas.
Learning activities include, KWL chart, web chart, group research
project, case study, and letter.
Instruction should start with introduction of material with the KWL
chart, knowledge of key terms, and videos of cycles. Then move
towards the web chart the students will fill in, the letter, the case
studies, and ending with the research project.
Students will demonstrate knowledge through the KWL chart, web
chart, letter, case studies, research and end of the unit test.
They should be able to actively know what contributes to global
warming and how weather and clime are affected by the world
around them.
For students that need extra help with background knowledge and
acquisition of knowledge during the unit I will provide them with
extra videos on how these weather and climate interact. I will also
provide them with checklists on things such as how to research and
how to write a letter to a congressman. I will also provide checklists
for terms that they will be seeing all unit long so they can refer back
to them during our activities.

RESOURCES: RESOURCES:
Text book
http://nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/global-warming/
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/101-videos/globalwarming-101