Page 292 - Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students 4th Edition

264 Powerful Social Studies for Elementary Students
Unit Goals
• To build on students’ understanding that shelter is a basic need and that different forms of shelter exist.
• To help students understand and appreciate the reasons for different forms of shelter. Shelter needs are determined in large part by local climate and geographical features. Most housing is constructed using materials adapted from natural resources that are plentiful in the local area. Certain forms of housing reflect cultural, economic, or geographic conditions: Tipis and tents are easily movable shelters used by nomadic societies; stilt houses are an adaptation for periodic flooding; high-rises are an adaptation for land scarcity in urban areas.
• To help students understand and appreciate how inventions, discoveries, new knowledge, and devel- opment of new materials have enabled many people today to live in housing that offers durability, better waterproofing, insulation, and temperature control, with fewer requirements for maintenance and labor.
• To help students understand how the development of modern industries and transportation make it
Possible Activity Selections
possible to construct almost any kind of shelter almost anywhere on earth. It is now possible for those who can afford it to live comfortably in very hot or very cold climates.
• To help students appreciate the energy efficiency now possible in modern homes due to the developments of technology.
• To help students acquire sensitivity toward the range of factors that contribute to the type of home (shelter) that a family can afford. (This includes consciousness-raising regarding the homeless.)
• To engender in students an appreciation for their current and future opportunities to make decisions about and exercise some control over aspects of their lives related to their shelter needs (e.g., choice making, life applications).
• To help students acquire an appreciation for the range of structures that have been created for shelters over time.
ACTIVITY RATING REASONS
1. Students read about various forms of shelter, view pictures of these forms, and then discuss reasons why people might select each form.
2. Students read about a range of workers, their expertise needed in constructing a house, and the order in which their work would be completed. Then they make puppets to rep- resent these workers talking to one another. The focal point of the discussion should be the role each plays in the com- pletion of the shelter and the sequence in which each job would be done.
3. Students prepare a collage that illustrates all the ways in which people satisfy their shelter needs.
4. Using a mural illustrating the range of shelters that exist in your area, students study the mural carefully and count the number of shelters depicted.
5. After describing (using pictures) inventions, new knowl- edge, and the development of new materials used in shelters, each student shares with the class the ones he or she thinks are most significant and why.
6. Students interview members of their households to find out if and how their homes are energy efficient. (A brief interview schedule will be developed for use in retrieving the data.) A guided class discussion will follow.
7. Students study a collection of pictures that illustrate how forms of housing reflect cultural, economic, and geographic
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