Inquiry Lesson Plan Template (with Four Ways of Thinking connection)

Teacher:
Content & Title:
Grade Level:
Abigail Surmay
Where Our Food
4th
Comes From
Sustainability
Standards:
Common Core:
Strand 3: Science in Personal and Social Perspectives
Concept 1: Changes in Environments
Describe the interactions between human populations, natural hazards, and the environment.
PO 1. Describe how natural events and human activities have positive and negative impacts on
environment (e.g., fire, floods, pollution, dams).
PO 2. Evaluate the consequences of environmental occurrences that happen either rapidly (e.g.,
fire, flood, tornado) or over a long period of time (e.g., drought, melting ice caps, the
greenhouse effect, erosion).
Question you could ask: What are the relationships like between the complex systems of humans
and the environment?
Strand 3: Civics/Government
Concept 2: Structure of Government
PO 1. Describe the three branches of state and national government:
Executive, Legislative and Judicial
PO 2. Describe different levels of government (e.g., local, tribal, state, national).
Question you could ask: Describe this system and how it brings functionality to society. What
would the United States look like without this system?
Next Generation Science Standards:
Structure, Function, and Information Processing
4-LS1-1
Construct an argument that plants and animals have internal and external structures that function
to support survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction.
4-LS1-2
Use a model to describe that animals receive different types of information through their senses,
process the information in their brain, and respond to the information in different ways.
Question you could ask: What systems support animal reproduction and survival?
Objectives (Explicit & Measurable):
Students will get in groups, and will be able to construct a system related to a particular
component of a hotdog and describe that system in 30 seconds to a minute to the class.
Students will be able to see some components of Systems Thinking, how it relates to
sustainability and will be ready when we discuss what that is in lessons to come.
Evidence of Mastery (Measurable Assessment: formative and summative):
(formative) Students will be able to work in their groups to find out how much work goes
into one aspect of a type of food.
(summative) Students will be able to describe the system in around 30 seconds to a minute
to the class, and be able to think about what happens when part of that system is gone.
Sub-objectives, SWBAT (steps that lead to completion of objective; sequence from simple
to more complex):

Students will be working in groups to figure out a system for their part of the hot dog. After
students see how complex a system can get, and how many steps go into each one, they
will then have to figure out what happens when a part of that system is take away while
making the connection to Systems Thinking and reviewing the benefits of eating locally.

Lesson Summary and Justification: (summary gives detailed information about what
students are doing. Justification why is this lesson being taught)
This is an important topic for students to learn because they will probably not get this
information on their own, and chances are will not think about it unless they are taught about
it. All students should know what every part of their food, how many steps it takes to create
one type of food product, and all the work that goes into making it happen and get to their
plate. This simulation will help them see the big picture, and hopefully fascinate them. This
is an important skill for elementary students to have so they can possibly change their
eating habits, along with their families, and as they grow up they will have this knowledge in
the back of their mind. Also teaching them how to be a smart consumer and help them in
making choices and being an educated consumer and hopefully lead to eating more locally.
Background Knowledge: (What do students need to know prior to completing this lesson)
What a hotdog is
Travel
Working in groups
Communication with peers and to whole class
Misconception: (what possible misleading thoughts might students have?)
All food comes straight from the grocery store
Process Skills: (what skills are you introducing or reinforcing)
Step by step thinking with multiple outcomes
Cause and Effect
Eating locally
Four Ways of Thinking connection: (Provide a complete explanation of how your lesson
plan connects to futures, system, strategic, or values thinking. Define the way of thinking
you selected and used in this lesson plan. Remember, this should be included meaningfully
in the lesson plan.)
Systems thinking is understanding how systems are connected in the not so obvious ways.
Seeing how one action can cause multiple outcomes but not in a step by step cause and
effect. This lesson connects with that because students are thinking about where each part
of a hot dog comes from in not so obvious way. Many probably never thought about where a
mustard seed comes from, to make mustard, before this lesson. They are also going to think
about what would happen to the end food product, if one step of the making process was
changed or not ready to use. Systems Thinking is demonstrated really well in this lesson.
Safety: (what safety rules and items need to be addressed?)
What are safe websites
Inquiry Questions: (testable in the here and now.)
1. (to explore) What parts of a system come together to make this part of the hotdog?
2. (to elaborate) What if one part of the system goes away? Would the system still work?
What changes would have to be made?
Key vocabulary: (list and define)
Materials: (list item and possible quantity)
1. Process - a series of actions or steps taken in
1. iPads (each student has their own)
order to achieve a particular end
2. White board markers (2 per group)
2. locally with respect to a particular place or
3. White board (1 per group)
situation. Nearby.
3. Systems Thinking - Understanding how
systems are connected in the not so obvious
ways. Seeing how one action can cause multiple
outcomes but not in a step by step cause and
effect.
Engage - In this section you should activate prior knowledge, hook student attention, pose a
question (IQ#1) based on your lesson objective that students will seek to answer in Explore.

Teacher Will: (hook)

Students Will:
Ask the class, How many of you love
hotdogs? To deconstruct and demystify
systems thinking, you are going to draw on
the example of the hotdog. Draw on the
board a hotdog in a bun. There are so
Listen carefully
many components to a hotdog: the pork
dog itself, cheddar cheese, relish, mustard,
ketchup, beef chili, sauerkraut and
guacamole. With so many parts, youre just
going to focus on the dog itself for right now
with the class. What parts of a system
come together to make this pork hotdog?
Where does a hotdog come from? Have
you ever thought about where your food
comes from before? Why or why not?
Now lets draw the system Draw or show
this system to the class. Look at what it
takes to make a hotdog :

You got to think about the care of the pigs

to the plastic packaging for the hot dogs
from other countries there is a large system
to just make one hotdog. On average our
food travels 1,300 miles before reaching
our plates! This is even when you live right
next to the grocery store! Throughout this
process there is money exchanged
between important people, labor involved
(workers), and various services used like
water and roads. This is a complex thing to
think about that is contently changing. The
process may have to change to either
accommodate or force parts of the system
to change and respond. Systems are rarely
fixed or simple.
This reminds us of one of our four ways of
thinking, Systems thinking (understanding
how systems are connected in the not so
obvious ways. Seeing how one action can
cause multiple outcomes but not in a step
by step cause and effect), all these steps
are coming together to make one final food
product.
So I am going to place you all into small

Help teacher with thinking of parts for

the hot dog system

Listen to what is going to happen

groups, in these groups you are each going

to get a part of a hot dog. It may be a
topping or the bun, but I want you guys to
do what I just showed you on the board and
think very deeply about this question: What
parts of a system come together to make
this part of the hotdog? IQ #1
Best Teaching Practice Strategy/Differentiation/ELL and Teacher Notes
All students should be able to participate in this part of the lesson, they are all capable of listenign
and thinking about what it takes to make the pork of a hot dog.
Explore - In this section students should take the lead and actively use materials to discover
information that will help them answer the question posed in Engage. Teachers may choose to
give steps to follow, especially for younger students, but the goal is for students to discover some
or all of the sub-objectives of the lesson.
Teacher Will: (pose IQ #1)
Students Will: (list all steps)
Get students into groups of 4-5. Give each
Get into assigned groups and positions
group space on a white board with their
iPads and white board markers.
on white boards with supplies
Assign one of the following to each group:
Make note of the part of hot dog
cheddar cheese, relish, mustard, ketchup,
assigned to thm
beef chili, sauerkraut, and or guacamole.
Give students at least 15 minutes to work
out their part of the hotdog system. Watch
how class works to see if they need more
time. They can use their ipads to look
things up. It will amaze them when they
realize they dont actually know where
mustard comes from or how it is made. Let
them Google as needed.
Remind students of the main question:
What parts of a system come together to
make this part of the hotdog? IQ #1 to keep
in their minds while they break down their
part of the hot dog.
For this activity our focus is on Systems
Reaseach, write, and break down
Thinking. We want to get the students
every part of the hot dog part they got
thinking about how systems are
to the simpliest form.
constructed (not that simple), how things
can change if a part of the system changes
(farmer Bob loses his farm, what happens
to the local slaughterhouse?)
Go to each group and push them for
details; we need to them to think beyond
the generalized system noted above. What
Think about what parts of a system
goes into the system that is not transparent
come togeher to make this part fo the
or easily known, who are the key players
hotdog
(government, etc.), what is not easily
described, and why. Push students to think
about at least one negative and one
positive effect of their system. What is one
negative unintended consequence of
relish? For example, an answer might be
that relish comes in small jars and requires

lots of packaging when shipped. It utilizes

monoculture-farming practices to produce
both the pickles and the high fructose
sweeter (corn)
Keep each group on task and engaged.
Best Teaching Practice Strategy/Differentiation/ELL and Teacher Notes
Because the students are getting a good amount of time, and working in groups, all students
should once again be able to participate in this activity.
Explain In this section students share what they discovered, teacher connects student
discoveries to correct content terms/explanations, students articulate/demonstrate a clear and
correct understanding of the lesson sub-objectives by answering the question from Engage before
moving on.
Teacher Will:
Students Will:
Get the students to wrap up their final
Wrap up research.
discoveries and start thinking of how they
are going to explain to the class.
Come back together as a class and have
groups share what they found (either one
person sharing for the group, or every
Present their findings on their part of
member sharing) starting with the bun, then
recap your pork quickly, and move onto
the hot dog.
toppings.
Have class really look at each quick
Listen to classmates findings
drawing and how many steps we really just
talked about to make one hot dog.
Discuss how surprisingly complex this
system is. Ask them if they can come up
with another complex system not related to
food (examples: natural gas extraction, the
Olympics, etc.). Ask the class if they see
Participate in discussions
how Systems Thinking is involved, do they
think this is an important skill to have
(thinking of the unseen ways) ?
Students will talk about questions in
partners and if any have any big ideas they
can share to the class.
Best Teaching Practice Strategy/Differentiation/ELL and Teacher Notes
This activity was really designed for everyone so each student should be able to participate once
again.
Elaborate In this section students take the basic learning gained from Explore and clarified in
Explain and apply it to a new circumstance or explore a particular aspect of this learning at a
deeper level. Students should be using higher order thinking in this stage. A common practice in
this section is to ask a What If? question. IQ #2
Teacher Will: (pose IQ #2)
Students Will:
Now that we have thought about all the
different parts of a system that come
together in a not so obvious way to make
just one part of a hot dog, for a whole dog, I
want you guys to think about something a
little different.
I want you guys to think about what if one
part of the system goes away? Would the

system still work? What changes would

have to be made? IQ #2
Walk around to each drawing the small
Think about how to fix system
groups presented and erase one big part of
their system.
Have students get back into their groups
and talk about what needs to be changed
to keep the end result, and what they need
to do to make sure their part is still
available to have, if it is even possible.
This shouldnt take to long, or do not give
them to much time to think about what they
have to do, they have to see how quickly
Present to class
something can change and how hard it can
be to fix something.
Listen to classmates new presentations
Have class come back together as a class
and represent their findings talking about
what they needed to do to keep their end
result, and if it was even possible.
Tell students they may want to write down
the differences they see and if all toppings
were able to be used again.
Best Teaching Practice Strategy/Differentiation/ELL and Teacher Notes
Every student can participate
Evaluate In this section every student demonstrates mastery of the lesson objective (though
perhaps not mastery of the elaborate content). Because this also serves as a closing, students
should also have a chance to summarize the big concepts they learned outside of the assessment.
Teacher Will:
Students Will:
Now I want you all to really think about
what happened in our class today.
We picked a type of food, most of us
love, to really break down into tiny pieces
of how it gets to our plate. We really
looked into where our food comes from.
We each got a part of a hot dog to break
down to see how that part of the hot dog,
makes it to the actual hot dog.
Each group found many steps into how
their part is made and how much it
travels, then we told our classmates
about it.
Listen and think very deeply about what
Once we talked about our systems for
is being said, and what they all
this one hot dog, we saw what happened
participated in today.
when one part of that system was taken
away, we saw if our product was still
available and what happened.
Can we all agree it takes a lot to make
something that seems fairly simple?
Imagine how much more it takes for a
bigger type of food than a hot dog. How
much eaiser would it be if everything we
used for our hot dog, was in our town?

There would be less travel, less money

used for travel, and possibly less labor,
and time. If we eat more locally the
changes of us knowing where every part
we just looked at, for our food comes
from and we would probably feel a lot
better about what we are putting into our
bodies, and how we are helping our
community.
Closure: (revisit objective, IQs and make real world connections)
You all did an amazing job constructing a system related to a particular component of a hotdog and
describing that system in 30 seconds to a minute to your class. I also loved how you each were
thinking about what parts of a system come together to make your part of the hot dog, and what
really happened if changes wer made to your system. I hope you all see how Systems Thinking
was used, when we saw how systems were connected in the not so obvious ways, and how eating
locally will help shorten these systems and the amount of food travels to get to our plate. Great job
today class.
**Best Practices List the Best Teaching Practices you will use to enhance the learning
outcomes. In each section where prompted, list the best practice, how the practices will be
used and the purpose.