REA en AICLE. Edición ON-LINE. Extremadura

 

SOCIAL SCIENCE 5^TH GRADE

UNIT: AIR AND WEATHER

 

OBJECTIVES:

SPECIFIC

·         Identify the gases that make up the air and explain some of their basic characteristics.

·         Identify the atmosphere, explain its principal characteristics and structure, and value its role in protecting life on Earth.

·         Identify and name atmospheric phenomena, describing the causes of clouds and precipitation and investigating the principle types of atmospheric pollution.

GENERAL

·         Obtain specific and relevant information, using different sources.

·         Develop a capacity for hard work and show perseverance when studying.

·         Develop a cooperative and adaptive attitude, recognising merit in other people’s ideas and responding to situations with intuition, an open mind and flexibility.

·         Obtains, analyses and adapts information received in a variety of different textual and graphic formats.

·         Develop creativity and initiative, improving their capacity to acquire information and ideas and present innovative conclusions.

·         Employ techniques appropriate to intellectual tasks; produce work and make presentations both individually and as a group, involving research, selection and organisation of texts of a social, geographical or historical nature, while showing autonomy and collaborative skills.

• Recognise cooperation and dialogue as a way to avoid and resolve conflicts, encouraging democratic values.
• Use ICTs to search for, select and present information.

 

CONTENTS

• Review and extend their knowledge of concepts relating to air and weather, learning about the gases that make up air; the layers of the atmosphere; basic weather concepts; as well as the main causes of air pollution. Pupils begin by refreshing what they learned in previous years, i.e. basic concepts about weather.
• They are then introduced to the different instruments used to measure weather and learn how to use charts to show data about temperature and rainfall.
• They go on to explore the combination of gases that make up the air around us and study three of the layers of the atmosphere: the troposphere, stratosphere and mesosphere.
• This is followed by a more in-depth explanation of weather concepts including temperature, humidity, wind and precipitation.
• The last contents deal with some of the major causes of air pollution and strategies to reduce or prevent air pollution in our daily lives.

LANGUAGE CONTENTS / COMMUNICATION

VOCABULARY

There is a greater amount of scientific vocabulary, but pupils will be familiar with many of the words related to weather. Let see them:

air, nitrogen, air pollution, oxygen, anemometer, pesticide, blizzard, pollen, breeze, precipitation, carbon dioxide, rain gauge, degrees, rainfall, emit, rays, fertiliser, recycle, flood, reduce, fog, stratosphere, forest fire, temperature, gale, thermometer, hail, thunderstorm, humidity, transportation, hygrometer, troposphere, insecticide spray, volcano, measure, water vapour, mesosphere, snow, cloud, wind, meteorite, weather station and wind vane.

STRUCTURES

• Routines: say the today’s, tomorrow’s and yesterday’s weather.

• Question words: who, how many, etc.

• Phrases relating to weather: What’s the weather like? It’s cloudy. It’s windy. It’s rainy. It’s cold.

• There is / are

• Infinitive to show purpose: We use a … to …

• Superlatives: hottest, coldest, wettest, driest

• Affirmative and negative short answers: Yes, it is / they are; No, it isn’t / they aren’t.

• Imperatives: reduce, reuse, recycle, take, walk, ride, plant, ride.

• Imperatives: join, attach, insert, mark, pass

• Phrasal verbs: pick up, make up.

DISCOURSE TYPE

In this unit we are going to use different types of texts: narrations, expositions, descriptions and dialogues. As well as graphs and diagrams.

LANGUAGE SKILLS

Listening, speaking, reading, writing and interacting.

CONTEXTUAL (CULTURAL) ELEMENTS

We may compare the Spanish and British weather. The hottest and coldest months and also the driest and wettest months.

COGNITIVE (THINKING) PROCESSES

Find out, identify, analyse, compare, create, explain and develop.

TASKS/ ACTIVITIES

SESSION 1: What’s the weather like?

Revision of the weather with a simple song they already know:

Weather Song For Kids The Sun Comes Up! - YouTube

What’s your favourite type of weather?

Describe what’s the weather like in the pictures. (digital board)

Find out some instruments we use to measure the weather.

Play odd one out with weather and weather instruments.

Explain what the weather instruments measure.

Match the weather instrument with what they measure.

 

SESSION 2: Climograph

Look at the temperature and the rainfall charts. (See the two charts in the digital board).

Learn how to analyse them and identify the coldest and hottest months and the driest and the wettest months too.

Compare the weather chart of Madrid and London. (See the charts in the digital board), analyse them.

Answer the questions in your notebook:

What’s the temperature today? What month is it at the moment? Is it raining today? Compare today’s weather with the data in the chart.

In an empty weather chart create the temperature and the rainfall graph with the data I give them.

CHART unit_weatherwatch.pdf

Find real information in:

http://www.aemet.es/en/eltiempo/

 

SESSION 3: The air around us.

Read a text about the air around us. Show them the different gases that make up the air.

Complete a text using the vocabulary and description of the different gases.

Read about the three closest layers to the Earth of the atmosphere and what happens in each one.

Draw a mini mural of the three closest layers to the Earth and make windows to open in each layer.

 

SESSION 4: Air pollution

Read and look at the pictures about air pollution.

Categorise the pictures as natural or man-made air pollution.

Think of some ways of preventing forest fires. Write at least two in the notebook.

Time to clean up! Think about the different ways we can reduce air pollution, write them down in the notebook.

 

SESSION 5: Project

They create a slide presentation with both, pictures and text, about the causes, effects and solutions of air pollution very briefly. They finish and prepare the presentation at home. (They send me the project by the classroom app).

 

SESSION 6: Expose the project

This activity will help students to consolidate their understanding. They expose the project in the classroom’s digital board.

 

METHODOLOGY

CLIL teaching is student-centered and very flexible learning. Learning is interactive and autonomous and is focused on processes and tasks, not just theoretical knowledge. The language is viewed from a lexical rather than grammatical point of view and the most important thing is that the student acquires fluency in the language. But also taking into account the level of knowledge of the students through the conductivist methodology. I also use the communicative method but in general the methodology I use is eclectic and depends on the task we are doing at that time.

ORGANIZATION AND CLASS DISTRIBUTION / TIMING

ORGANIZATION AND DISTRIBUTION OF THE CLASS:

I have a class of 25 pupils. My students are currently sitting individually for COVID reasons. Previously they sat in small groups of four or five students in a heterogeneous way to be able to help each other, but it depends on the task we are developing.

TIMING:

Sessions are designed for a 60 minutes’ class. I have used 5 sessions to develop this unit.

RESOURCES AND MATERIALS

Flashcards about weather and weather instruments.

Digital board.

Posters.

Computers with the internet.

 

KEY COMPETENCES

1. Competence in Linguistic Communication. (CLC) 
2. Competence in Mathematics, Science and Technology. (CMST)
3. Digital Competence (DC). 
4. Learning to Learn. (L2L).
5. Social and Civic Competences. (SCC)
6. Sense of Initiative and Entrepreneurship. (SIE)

EVALUATION (CRITERIA AND INSTRUMENTS)

Evaluation rubric:

- Identify the gases that make up the air and explain some of their basic characteristics.

- Identify the atmosphere, explain its principal characteristics and structure, and value its role in protecting life on Earth.

- Identify and name atmospheric phenomena, describing the causes of clouds and precipitation and investigating the principle types of atmospheric pollution.

- Obtain specific and relevant information, using different sources.

- Develop a capacity for hard work and show perseverance when studying.

- Develop a cooperative and adaptive attitude, recognising merit in other people’s ideas and responding to situations with intuition, an open mind and flexibility.

- Obtains, analyses and adapts information received in a variety of different textual and graphic formats.

- Develop creativity and initiative, improving their capacity to acquire information and ideas and present innovative conclusions.

- Employ techniques appropriate to intellectual tasks; produce work and make presentations both individually and as a group, involving research, selection and organisation of texts of a social, geographical or historical nature, while showing autonomy and collaborative skills.

- Recognise cooperation and dialogue as a way to avoid and resolve conflicts, encouraging democratic values.

- Use ICTs to search for, select and present information.

Instruments:

The direct observation, the revision of the notebook and oral activities, I take notes of it in my class diary. I also make a test that includes reading and writing activities to review their knowledge and they expose a project, as a final task, to evaluate the reading and speaking skills.

 

 

 By Mª Victoria Navas Díaz