Custom «Social Studies» Essay Paper Sample

Social studies have been identified as a very important course in the curriculum. It remains the only course that best integrates the learner with the society. If well taught, it produces students who are all-rounded and ready to be the part and parcel of the society’s development. This is due to the fact that it is the only course which covers almost all other disciplines. What any education system strives to achieve is: equipping students with the necessary knowledge that exhibits the ability of becoming productive. This includes the self awareness and also the awareness of the surrounding. All these can only be achieved by an efficient thematic curriculum design and assessment.

Just as Gallavan, N. P., & Kottler, E. (2007) wrote in their book: Eight types of graphic organizers for empowering social studies students and teachers, social studies has never been an easy subject to the students. This is so due to its complex nature. Therefore, for the fruits of its study to be realized, the above mentioned design is necessary. Graphic organizers give the best method for both teachers and the students. These are visual models that give the teachers and students tools, language and concepts of analyzing and organizing ideas. The data collected can, therefore, be well managed for different purposes (Crawford and Carnine 2000).

There are eight different graphic organizers that can be used depending on the purpose. These include: Assume and Anticipate, Position and Pattern, Group and Organize, Compare and Contrast, Relate and Reason, Identify and Imagine, Estimate and Evaluate, and Combine and Create. All of the above graphic organizers help the students and teachers to get the existing truth about a subject, discuss the outcomes, share more ideas, have correct information, put all the outcomes in an easy to remember format. This makes learning the social studies more interactive and enjoyable.

In this assignment, an outline of an environmental theme is created to aid in teaching Grade 1-3 classes. The main focus of this lesson is on the aquatic wildlife and pollution. It is prudent for the learners to understand what consists of the aquatic wildlife. The ability to identify the polluted aquatic environment is also important. To make sure that this theme is fully understood, the best graphic organizer that can best be used is the Group and Organize. The students will be taught wildlife pictures, while working in groups. This type of graphic organizer that best suits working with students in groups. Aquatic and wildlife pollution is a topic that will be taught for a month or more.

The objective of this study is for the students to be able to know and draw pictures of healthy and hazardous marine, including the freshwater environments. The students should also, by the end of the unit, be able to know the danger poised by plastic materials to the wildlife. The last but not the least, they should eventually be able to focus their attention on the plastic pollution in their neighborhood and other surroundings. In general, this unit should be able to make the students be more sensitive to the natural environment. Their ability to know the interrelationship between different living things would also be appreciated.

For this course to be successful, the following materials will be required: water and land wildlife pictures of different kinds, pencils, crayons, markers, colored pencils, plastic garbage in a garbage bag, paper, and a chat showing litters which are dangerous and those that are not. The lessons will be done by the aid of a book, known as One Less Fish. It contains stories that would be helpful in advancing the awareness of the topics. Groups and Organize graphics organizer are modeled in the shape of a pyramid made up of layers one on top of the other. These layers are to be filled by the students who will be doing identification and grouping of the wildlife and pollutants.

The first title is the introduction of the topic. Here, the engage of the students starts immediately. The students will be asked by the teacher on what they know about animals and their environment. They will then be put in groups of five and then given around ten different pictures of wild animals. They will be encouraged to classify them into groups, according to their understanding. The teacher then discusses with them all by asking each group the criteria of groupings. This section should end by the students discussing good and harmful environments for the animals.

The following title is about the aquatic wildlife. The garbage bags will be handed over to them to remove the plastic garbage examination and try to establish any relationship with aquatic life. The students will then be asked to classify them into those that likely to be marine food or not. The discussion then follows on which animals eat the garbage and how they found their way to the water. The next thing will be for the teacher to read for the story entitled “One Less Fish”. This story is not related to the topic, but the questions will lead to the topic. After this, they will be asked to fill in the chart. In the next lesson, they will again be asked to predict different kinds of plastic garbage that they thought were in their playground.

As the lessons progress and more learning continue, the children will have a lesson done outside the classroom. This day, students will be dressed appropriately and all will go to the play ground. Everyone will make a circle and the teacher will ask them to recall what they had learned in all the previous lessons. All of them are given a chance to explain they know or have heard. The teacher will then take this opportunity to elaborate more on how plastics are dangerous, especially to the marine life. Plastics have been found in the bellies of whales and other types of fish and even birds. The fishermen loose their plastic nets in the water. These nets later trap fish ending up killing them.

An observation assignment will then be done by the students after being grouped into three. They are to pick any material from the play ground that they think could be dangerous to the wildlife. The teacher will then ask them to categorize them into the most dangerous and the least dangerous. Any group that picked another material other than plastic would be asked to explain why it was dangerous. Then the students will fill the chart with the new materials from the play ground. This will be compared to the previous predicted list.

According to O'Malley and Valdez Pierce (1996), authors of Authentic Assessment for English Language Learners, authentic assessment is the sure way of ensuring that learning is followed up effectively and the progress of the student is noted. As part of this, the teacher will give each student a piece of paper, in order to draw both a healthy environment and hazardous environment for aquatic wildlife. Next time, the teacher will ask them to write down what they could do to save the aquatic animals. Last but not least, the teacher will ask them to write down causes of water pollution and its effects.

It should be noted that by the use of group work during this course, students will be able to put their minds together, discuss with each other, and also gain from each other. The use of Group and Organize model is a tool of making learning more interactive, especially with the natural world. In this process, the student enjoys at the same time. In conclusion, assessments of individual performance of students become easier, due to the ease of learning. Discussions, the use of story telling, and charts are ways of building confidence on the learners.