Geography Unit Plan of Mt.

Pleasant

a) Basic/Background Information
Grade level: 2nd grade
Number of students: 24
Time allotted: 20-30 minute lessons, 2 times per week for a total of 8 weeks
Community: Mt. Pleasant
Guiding question: What is the city of Mt. Pleasant, MI like?
On-going Project: The students’ on-going project for the year will be to work in groups
of 2 or 3 to make brochures about the city of Mt. Pleasant. The brochures will include
information about the four units we have been learning about all year: History,
Geography, Economics, and Civics of Mt. Pleasant. (Speaking & Listening Standards #1)
For example, there would be a section that talks about the industries in Mt. Pleasant that
most support its economy. The main goal of this project is to not only refresh the
students’ memory about what they have been taught, but also for them to work
cooperatively in groups to apply their knowledge through an integrative brochure and
then share it with the community of Mt. Pleasant. (See Culminating Activity)
Culminating Activity: After the students perfect their brochures, towards the end of the
year they will make copies of them and distribute them to the community downtown.
This will allow the students to share the knowledge they have been taught all year to
other citizens in the community. It is very important for our community to be well-
informed about the city they are living in as many of us are not. As a result, distributing
these brochures as a class will show our students, at a young age, a great example of how
to be a good citizen and hopefully encourage them to stay active in the community.

b) Goals/Rationale
Goals: For the students to be able to analyze a variety of data sources and have a better
understanding about the geography around them.
Rationale: This is important beyond just school because as citizens of the community of
Mt. Pleasant, the students need to be informed about how the climate, location, and
culture affect the community, as its impacts them every day without them always
noticing.

c) Teacher Objectives/Standards and Benchmarks

Student learning objectives: See Appendix A

Social studies facts, concepts, generalizations and skills: See Unit Plan Table
3 key ideas/generalizations: 1. Because Mt. Pleasant is located towards the northern
portion of the Northern Hemisphere and far away from the equator, the climate
experiences four seasons (warm summers and cold winters as well). 2. The Soaring Eagle
Casino and Resort and Central Michigan University (CMU) has greatly increased the
population of Mt. Pleasant because of the goods and services they offer. 3. Despite the
population of Mt. Pleasant being primarily Caucasian or white, there are still many
cultural events and tribal celebrations throughout the year to celebrate the Native
American heritage.
Concept development examples: See Appendix B

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 Standards: See MDE Standards handout

d) Teacher Preparation and Resources

Teacher knowledge: I’ll need to know the different facts, concepts, generalizations, and
skills listed in the unit plan table. For example, I’ll need to know how the location of Mt.
Pleasant affects its weather, how the Native American culture affects the city, and how
the college influences the city.

Instructional/Inquiry Resources:
1. http://www.mt-pleasant.org/: an Internet site that offers tons of information about the
city’s history, government, upcoming events, city maps, links to various other resources,
etc.
2. “Connections” Newsletter: quarterly newsletter that is mailed to its city’s residents and
includes reports about seasonal programs, ordinance reminders, how the city operates,
and plenty more.
3. https://nces.ed.gov/nceskids/createagraph/: a great site for the students to go to create
their own graph about the city’s population, climate, goods/services, etc.
4. http://nationalgeographic.org/education/map-skills-elementary-students/: a very helpful
site that provides great map skills for children in grades K-6 that can be taught in the
classroom.
5. http://www.michigan.org/city/mount-pleasant/: the Pure Michigan site for Mt. Pleasant
that offers things to do in the city as well as the audio of their Pure Michigan commercial.
6. Testimonials: this could come from people in the local government, informed parents
who want to share their experiences living in Mt. Pleasant, or a worker at CMU who
could share the goods and services that the college offers.
7. Michigan maps: these are a good representation of Mt. Pleasant’s location in the state and
display how their location affects their climate.
8. 2010 US Census: gives a great overview of the people that live in the city; what types of
jobs they have, their annual income, population distribution, etc.
9. The Mt. Pleasant Parks: display the characteristics (forest areas) of what the city was like
when it was founded and often border the Chippewa River, a major reason why the city
was built where it was (Ward wanted people to be near the river as a source of trade and
transportation).
10. The Ziibiwing Cultural Center: a cultural center that displays artifacts and recognizes the
significance of the history of the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe.
Other Teacher Preparation: I would like to arrange a field trip to one of the Mt. Pleasant
City Parks, such as Nelson Park and the Ziibiwing Cultural Center. This presents the
challenge of getting approval by the school administration, creating permission slips and
finding time to fit the trips into the plan. However, I believe with proper planning done
way ahead of time, this can be made possible. Also, I would like to bring in a
representative from CMU to talk about the different goods and services they offer and the
impact the college has had on the population growth of Mt. Pleasant.

e) Assessment Plans
Prior Knowledge: The children are likely to understand that maps and globes represent
places, simple direction words like up, down, right, and left, what absolute locations are,

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 the different components of culture (foods, language, religion, etc.), and how people
adapt to living in their environment. However, they may have misconceptions or little
knowledge of the different types of landmasses and bodies of water, the difference
between physical and human characteristics of places, more complex direction words like
north south, east, and west, how their community is a part of a larger region, and how to
construct a map using symbols, labels, and legends. I will find out my students’ prior
knowledge by asking them questions regarding the geography standards for their first two
years of schooling (kindergarten and first grade). Also, I could have them take a pre-test
at the beginning of the unit to see what they already know and spend some time reflecting
on the topics that they need more time on.
Formative/Summative Assessment: The on-going project for the year of making a
brochure provides assessment of the knowledge and skills taught for this geography unit
because it asks the students to reflect on what they have been previously taught. It tests
their ability to work together with their group members to form their brochure on the
importance of the information they were taught as accurately as possible. They must not
just state the facts but also state why the facts are important and the effect the facts have
on us. For their summative assessment, I will test them on their ability to convey the
knowledge they learned regarding geography to the citizens of Mt. Pleasant for their
culminating activity. They have to be able to present their information to some of the
citizens in a very logical, understanding, and persuasive way so the end result is the
citizen becoming better informed about the city and motivated to be more active in the
community.
Curriculum Alignment Summary: See notes and examples for Appendix A

f) Instructional Sequence of Lessons

i) Hook lesson: I will start by showing the students a map of what the city of Mt.
Pleasant looked like before it became an official city in the late 19th century
(without telling them what it is). I’ll ask them what they notice about the map and
what they think the map is of. Then I will show them a map of the current city and
they will have an “ah ha” moment and come to the conclusion that the original
map is Mt. Pleasant. This lesson will focus on the environmental changes of the
city throughout the years and the positive and negative consequences of changing
the physical environment (G5.0.2). Also, it will suggest ways we can responsibly
interact with the environment in our local community (G5.0.1). The guiding
question will be, “How have humans affected the environment?” I will present
this information through visual pictures, internet diagrams, and other data sources
so the students can see the impacts of human-environment interactions and will
hopefully spark their interest to learn more about it and be positively involved in
improving the quality of the environment they live in.
ii) Lesson 2: For the second lesson, I will move to getting more in-depth into maps
and globes (G1.0.1). The main goal of the lesson is for the students to understand
what are the labels, directions, and symbols that make up a map, as well latitude
and longitude on a map (G1.0.2). They will most likely have misconceptions and
not fully understand what makes up a map, so it would be very beneficial to spend
some time on it. I would show them some examples of maps of Mt. Pleasant and
outline to them what each of the labels, directions and symbols mean. For their

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assessment, I will split them into groups and ask them questions out loud about
what the symbols represent in a given example map. As a group, they will write
their answers on a sheet of paper and I will come around and examine what they
put down. Then, as a class, we will discuss what the answer is and why it is as a
group.

Lesson 3: Next, I will have the students first draw a map of their room. Then, I
will have them expand into their whole house and then into their neighborhood.
Finally, I will have them extend into the entire city. The main purpose of this
lesson is for the students to be able to construct a map on their own and see how
their local community is part of a bigger region (G2.2.2). By starting with the
simple image of their room, it builds the students’ confidence, and then provides
them a good representation of the city, by slowly building off that. For the
assessment, I will test the students’ abilities to make their own legend for their
map, addressing scale, distance, and labels for their images. They may use google
maps to compare their location from their house to the city or school. Lastly, they
will analyze the drawings of their classmates and compare their maps.

Lesson 4: The main purpose of the 4th lesson will be for the students to understand
why the location of Mt. Pleasant greatly affects their climate. I will explain to
them in depth the difference between climate and weather, and show them videos
of the different kinds of weather; rain, hail, wind, snow, etc. I will pull out a globe
and show them how the northern latitude causes the city to experience four
seasons, especially warm summers and cold winters. Also, there are no immediate
effects from the Great Lakes, as the city is in the middle of the Lower Peninsula. I
will show them climate graphs of Mt. Pleasant and have them examine how it has
changed throughout the years. For their assessment, I will give the students a
short quiz asking questions about the impact of Mt. Pleasant’s location on its
climate.
Lesson 5: The fifth lesson will focus on the physical and human characteristics of
the community of Mt. Pleasant (G2.0.1). The goal is for the students to
understand the difference between the two and recognize the different
characteristics around the city. I would like to take the students on a walk around
the community so they can see all the characteristics first hand, but if that is not
possible, I could simply show them photographs. It is key for them to be able to
recognize these differences, so to help support their understanding, I will make
sure they can distinguish them through examples and understand how Mt.
Pleasant is created from these characteristics. For the assessment, the students will
each write a short reflection about one physical and one human characteristic of
the community; sharing why it is that type of characteristic and why it is
important to the growth of the community.

Lesson 6: For the 6th lesson, I will bring in a representative from Central
Michigan University (CMU) to talk about the goods and services they offer to Mt.
Pleasant (G4.0.1). The goal of this lesson is to teach the students about how and
why CMU nearly doubles the population of the city during the college session.

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 CMU is such a huge part of the community and has such a variety of impacts. By
giving the students a primary source of information on the goods, services,
cultural impacts, and other concepts and generalizations (G4.0.2), the students
will be able take notes and observe first hand why many other businesses rely on
the student population from CMU. For the assessment, I will ask the students to
write down three key goods and services the college offers and their impacts on
the community.

Culminating lesson: For the final lesson, I would like to take a field trip to the
Ziibiwing Cultural Center in Mt. Pleasant. I have visited the Ziibiwing Center in
elementary and also in college, and it does a great job of displaying artifacts and
recognizing the significance of the culture of the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe.
This will be a good way to end the unit because it brings together the cultural
aspect of Mt. Pleasant (G4.0.3), one of the most important components of
geography. Also, the Ziibiwing Center brings together many of the previous
lessons because it offers goods and services and encompasses many of the
concepts taught, such as maps and climate, in the tour.

Differentiation plan: At the Tier I level, I plan on addressing the students through
the main learning styles; audio, visual, and kinesthetic, to help all diverse learning
needs. For example, I will utilize many visual pictures and diagrams for visual
learners while also using lectures and testimonials for audio learners. For
kinesthetic learners, taking minds-on fields trips around the community and to the
Ziibiwing Center, addresses their needs. In addition, I plan on quickly learning the
students’ interests before the unit begins and building relationships with them.
This way, I will be able to steer my lesson plans to their interests as best as
possible and be able to know what way each individual student learns the best.
Finally, by implementing technology into the classroom, the students will be able
to access the information on their own at home and do further research to increase
their understanding in the topics of Geography.

Appendix A

Student Learning Evidence of Learning - Instructional activity to

Summative (S) or Formative (F) support learning
Content: Students will know how the location of Mt. Pleasant affects its climate, the difference
between goods and services, how humans have affected the environment, the difference between
physical and human characteristics of geography, and what makes up a large portion of the city’s
culture.
The different components of Brochure includes accurate Examining climate graphs,
weather (temperature, drawings and descriptions of check weather on google
precipitation, humidity, climate graphs and definitions of earth
wind) the components of weather (S)
Short quiz (F)

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The different components Brochure includes accurate Map-making activity,
that make up a map (legends, drawings and descriptions of a jeopardy game to check for
keys, distance, longitude, Mt. Pleasant map and definitions understanding
latitude, etc.) of the components of a map (S)
Check during class discussion (F)
The role of human activity Final brochure includes the Comparison of Mt. Pleasant
on the environment impact of humans on Mt. pre-city and current map,
Pleasant’s environment (S) community walk
Ask questions during class
discussion (F)
The difference between Short description in the final Community walk, interaction
human and physical brochure (S) with photographs
characteristics of geography Short reflection about one human
and one physical characteristic
(F)
The role of Native Brochure will include an accurate Field trip to the Ziibiwing
Americans in the city’s description of the Native Center
culture American culture (S)
Class discussion about the field
trip (F)
Processes/Skills/Strategies: Students will be able to make and interpret a map, read and
understand a climate graph, and analyze and interpret a photograph.
Gather information from Reflection on the goods and Testimonial from a member
interviews services CMU offers (S) of CMU
Organizing data in map form Students’ map of their room, Identify data to collect (e.g.:
house, neighborhood, and city distance from location to
includes accurate organization of location) Lesson on map
their data (S) symbols and directions
Draw on core democratic Constant improvement on the Culminating activity at the
values to convince the brochure and practicing (S) end to present brochures to
citizens of Mt. Pleasant to be the citizens of Mt. Pleasant
better informed and more
active in the community
Attitudes: Students will value the importance of mapmaking and importance of CMU and the
Soaring Eagle Casino and Resort to growing Mt. Pleasant’s population.

They can make a map Examine examples of Mt. Emphasize the importance of
Pleasant maps and practice symbols, legends, and keys
making one themselves (S)
They can inform others about Informal observation and Emphasize need to have and
the geography of Mt. conversation – checklist (F) to weigh evidence
Pleasant
Action: Students will show active response to learning and informing others about the geography
of Mt. Pleasant.

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Engaging in a service-
learning project
Observation/checklist during
planning (F) and during project
(S)
Ask students to identify
problems in the community
that can be addressed; such
as the lack of informed
citizens and active
participation in the
community

Appendix B
Culture: The foods, languages, religions, traditions, beliefs, customs, and arts of a particular
society, group, place, or time. Examples in Mt. Pleasant would include the Native American
culture and the group of farmers in the community. The students may get culture confused with
race or ethnicity. Although they are concepts that can define a culture, they should not be used
interchangeably with the word “culture” as they are totally different. Foods, languages, religions,
traditions, beliefs, customs, and arts are all concepts that make up a culture. A concept map could
be made that shows all of these concepts branching off the main concept in the middle, culture. I
hope to introduce all these concepts to the students through a concept map with simple
definitions for the 2nd graders to understand. Then, I plan on introducing the Native American
culture because it makes up such a huge part of the Mt. Pleasant community. Finally, I plan on
taking them to the Ziibiwing Cultural Center so they can get a firsthand, visual representation of
the Native American culture and their impact on the community even before it became a city.

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 Unit Table

a) Compelling Question: Where is Mt. Pleasant located and how does its location impact
the people that live there?
b) 3-5 c) Data sources d) Key concepts e) Key social f)Data found
Supporting and conceptual studies skills and
Questions understandings strategies
1. Where is it Globes, maps, Relative Reading 43.5978° N,
located? atlas, Internet location, maps/globes, 84.7675° W,
diagrams direction, spatial 7.83 sq. mi,
(G1.0.3) legends, keys, organization, 235m above sea
distance, comparing its level
absolute location with
location, other
longitude, communities,
latitude, altitude analyzing
(G1.0.2) natural/human
characteristics
(G1.0.1)
(G2.0.1)
2. What’s the Climate graph, Climate, Reading and Annual high
climate like? Internet weather, understanding temperature:
diagrams temperature, graphs, 56.1 °F, annual
precipitation, comparing low temperature:
humidity, wind, weather during 36.3 °F, average
four seasons the different annual rainfall:
(G5.0.2) seasons, 32.38 inch, very
analyzing few hills or large
climatic changes landforms
and physical
features

3. How do Photos, Culture, Analyzing Native American

people use the testimonials, language, photographs, culture, huge
land? cultural graphs, religion, goods, comparing college
US Census services, cultures, influence,
records traditions analyzing primarily white
(G4.0.1) different population87.6
(G4.0.3) goods/services %
(G4.0.2)
(G4.0.4)

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Evidence-based Mt. Pleasant, MI is located at 43.5978° N and 84.7675° W, at the heart of
claims Central Michigan. Its neighboring cities and towns include Alma, Clare,
Shepherd, Weidman, and Midland. Because it is towards the middle of the
state, it does not have any bordering effects from the Great Lakes. The
climate is generally warm in the summers and cold in the winters (annual
high temperature: 56.1 °F, annual low temperature: 36.3 °F) Also, there is
an average annual rainfall of 32.38 inch. There is also very few hills or
large landforms. Because of the warm summers, few hills and large
landforms, and annual rainfall, there are many farms outside the city
(including mine). In the summer, farmers often grow corn, hay, soybeans,
potatoes, squash, tomatoes, etc. During the fall and winter, temperatures
begin to drop and rain turns into snow, so farming land is very seasonal
during late spring-early fall.
Central Michigan University (CMU) and Mid-Michigan Community
College (MMCC) are both located in Mt. Pleasant. They are a huge part of
the city’s culture as many of the goods and services provided are related to
them. During the college season, the population of Mt. Pleasant is almost
doubled because of the students who come to live there. Also, the city has a
major Chippewa Indian culture influence, as the original inhabitants of the
city were Ojibwa people. Many Native Americans still live in Mt. Pleasant
and often express their heritage, as seen through the various Tribal events
and celebrations throughout the year. This is important for the students to
understand because despite much of what social studies teachers instruct
about the Indians is often very brief and negative. The teacher must make it
clear that the Indians, along with the colleges, had a huge impact on Mt.
Pleasant growing its population and becoming a well-established
community.