Soil Lesson Plan: Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy and Dynamics
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This lesson accompanies the BrainPOP Jr. topic Soil, and supports the standard of describing how small pieces of rock and dead plant and animal parts can be the basis of soil, and explaining the process by which soil is formed. Students demonstrate understanding through a variety of projects.
Step 1: ACTIVATE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE
Ask students:
- What plants do you have in your community?
- What do you observe about where these plants grow?
Step 2: BUILD KNOWLEDGE
- Play the Soil movie.
- Click the pause button each time a question appears in Annie’s Notebook and discuss it as a class. Then play to see how Annie answers it.
TIP: The pause button turns red to remind you to pause.
Step 3: APPLY and ASSESS
Students take the Easy Quiz or Hard Quiz, demonstrating what they learned about the topic while applying essential literacy skills.
Step 4: DEEPEN and EXTEND
Students express what they learned about soil while practicing essential literacy skills with one or more of the following activities. Differentiate by assigning ones that meet individual student or grade-level needs.
- Draw About It: Draw what you might find in soil.
- Activity: Collect different types of soil. Use labels to describe each type.
- Talk About It: Describe each layer of soil.
- Write About It: Write about why soil is important.
More to Explore
Land Unit: Continue to build understanding around soil by exploring more BrainPOP Jr. topics.
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