High school students at my comprehensive high school in Philadelphia often do not make the connections between their own lives and their surrounding environment.  My curriculum unit on this topic explores how lives across the globe are currently being affected by localized environmental issues caused by human influenced chemical reactions.  We will also look into the future to predict how our lives could be affected as these chemical reactions make a broader impact on the global environment.

The skill objectives students will meet are varied, but are typical of a high school chemistry course. Students will learn problem solving and estimation techniques as well as improve their ability to make arguments that are supported by evidence and data.  To broaden the scope of this unit, I wanted to utilize the Next Generation Science Standards which can be found in the Content Standards section. As a side note, Pennsylvania has yet to adopt the Next Generation Science Standards.

The chemistry specific objectives of the unit will include the following:

• Students will symbolically represent chemical equations found in the environment.
• Students will predict the products of specific chemical reactions in the environment.
• Students will classify these chemical reactions as either synthesis, decomposition, single replacement, double replacement, or combustion.
• Students will balance the chemical equations by applying the Law of Conservation of Mass.
• Students will recognize common signs of chemical changes.

Guided notes:

Guided Notes are teacher prepared handouts that have blank spaces for writing down key concepts, facts, definitions, etc. They allow students the opportunity to demonstrate appropriate classroom behavior while promoting active engagement during a lecture. Guided Notes can increase on-task behavior, improve note-taking accuracy and help improve academic performance. Guided Notes can easily be adapted to any instructional level and altered for students with specific skill deficits.

According to the handy Teacher Toolkit, there are 4 guidelines that allow for successful implementation of guided notes.

• Prioritize: Decide what is most important for students to understand in the presentation or reading for which they will be taking notes.
• Create: Prepare a set of notes that contains the essential information from the presentation or reading.  Underline or highlight the key concepts, facts or information that students will be responsible for writing into the final version. Next, replace those concepts with blanks for the students to fill in.
• Explain: Prior to handing out copies of the Guided Notes in class, ensure that students understand their responsibility to fill in each of the blanks with the appropriate concepts, definitions, or other content to help them understand what they will be seeing, hearing, or reading.
• Review: Discuss the correct answers with the class as the presentation progresses or after the reading.

Cooperative Learning:

Cooperative Learning is an instructional strategy in which groups of students work together on a common task. For this unit, groups of students will form cell phone brand corporations. Each group member is individually responsible for a specific part of the corporation. Researchers report that cooperation typically results in higher group and individual achievement, healthier relationships with peers, more metacognition, and greater psychological health and self-esteem (Johnson and Johnson 1989).

According to David Johnson and Roger Johnson (1999), there are five basic elements that allow successful small-group learning:

• Positive interdependence: Students feel responsible for their own and the group’s effort.
• Face-to-face interaction: Students encourage and support one another; the environment encourages discussion and eye contact.
• Individual and group accountability: Each student is responsible for doing their part; the group is accountable for meeting its goal.
• Group behaviors: Group members gain direct instruction in the interpersonal, social, and collaborative skills needed to work with others.
• Group processing: Group members analyze their own and the group’s ability to work together.

Problem-Based Learning:

The best way for students to learn science is to experience the problems and try to solve them. To do this, real-world problems are presented for students to investigate what they need to know and want to know. In a problem-based learning environment, students take responsibility for what is learned and how it is learned. The teacher guides the investigations through challenging questions and well-planned lesson structure, but the students use collaboration and inquiry to problem-find, problem-solve, and evaluate results.  Problem-based learning is an instructional strategy in which students learn through solving problems and reflecting on their experiences (Barrows & Tamblyn, 1980).

Close Reading:

Close reading allows students to critically analyze text by focusing on vital details. Students read to determine what the text says so that they can make logical inferences from the information.  Students are to cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text.

According to National Board Certified Teacher Beth Burke, close reading includes:

• Using short passages and excerpts
• Diving right into the text with limited pre-reading activities
• Focusing on the text itself
• Rereading deliberately
• Reading with a pencil
• Noticing things that are confusing
• Discussing the text with others
  •  Think-Pair Share or Turn and Talk frequently
  •  Small groups and whole class

• Responding to text-dependent questions

Reading List for Teachers

Burke, Beth. (n.d.) A Close Look at Close Reading: Scaffolding Students with Complex Texts. <http://nieonline.com/tbtimes/downloads/CCSS_reading.pdf>

Nice article that explains Close Reading

Diamond, Jared M. (2005). Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. New York: Viking.

Amazing book that covers past civilizations that crumbled or survived.

Johnson D. W., & Johnson, R.  (1989).  Cooperation and competition: Theory and research. Edina, MN: interaction Book Company.

This book provides information about cooperative learning instructional strategy.

Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. (1999). Learning together and alone: Cooperative, competitive, and individualistic learning (5th Ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

This book provides information about cooperative learning instructional strategy.

Konrad, M., Joseph, L. M., & Eveleigh, E. (2009). A meta-analytic review of guided notes. Education and Treatment of Children, 32(3), 421-444.

This book provides information about guided notes instructional strategy.

NV atCEPImperial (2013) Climate Change in the Anthropocene <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Bjn2RGAIo0>

If you prefer to acquire knowledge through a video, this is the best one I found.

Rockström, J., & Klum, M. (2014). Big world, small planet: Abundance within planetary boundaries. Bokforlaget Max Strom. < http://bwsp.org/ >

Amazing pictures are included in this powerful book that shows the importance of the environment to human survival.

Spilsbury, L., & Spilsbury, R. (2007). Chemical reactions. Chicago, IL: Heinemann Library.

This book provides background information on chemical reactions.

Vince, G. (2014). Adventures in the Anthropocene: A journey to the heart of the planet we made. London: Chatto & Windus.

The author is a science journalist who decides to travel the world to see what is happening to the earth’s surface and what people are doing to find solutions.

Reading List for Students

Friends of the Earth <http://www.foe.org/>

Focused on the economic drivers that are encouraging environmental degradation.

Scorecard: The Pollution Information Site <http://scorecard.goodguide.com/>

Allows students to investigate pollution in the United States at a local level.

Student Science <https://student.societyforscience.org/article/how-people-have-been-shaping-earth>

Great blog article on how humans are changing the shape of the earth.

World Organization <http://www.world.org/>

Includes the top 1000 most useful environmental related web sites to help students research chemical reactions associated to their Planetary Boundary.

World Resources Institute <http://www.wri.org/>

Research website focused on climate, energy, food, forests, water, and cities and transport.

List of Materials for Classroom Use

Big History Project <https://school.bighistoryproject.com/>

Sign up for a free teacher account, it might just be the best thing you do today. 

Neo/Sci Lab <https://www.fishersci.com/>

All of the labs for this unit were contained in the Neo/Sci Chemical Reactions Lab Kit. This kit can be easily ordered through Fisher Scientific or other retailers.

Welcome to the Anthropocene <http://www.anthropocene.info/>

This is the website to go to find the most up-to-date information on the topic.

Next Generation Science Standards

HS-PS1-2  Construct and revise an explanation for the outcome of a simple chemical reaction based on the outermost electron states of atoms, trends in the periodic table, and knowledge of the patterns of chemical properties.

HS-PS1-4  Develop a model to illustrate that the release or absorption of energy from a chemical reaction system depends upon the changes in total bond energy.

HS-PS1-5  Apply scientific principles and evidence to provide an explanation about the effects of changing the temperature or concentration of the reacting particles on the rate at which a reaction occurs.

HS-PS3-1  Create a computational model or simulation of a phenomenon, designed device, process, or system.

HS-PS3-2  Develop and use a model based on evidence to illustrate the relationships between systems or between components of a system.

HS-PS3-3  Design, evaluate, and/or refine a solution to a complex real-world problem, based on scientific knowledge, student-generated sources of evidence, prioritized criteria, and tradeoff considerations.

HS-PS3-4  Plan and conduct an investigation individually and collaboratively to produce data to serve as the basis for evidence, and in the design: decide on types, how much, and accuracy of data needed to produce reliable measurements and consider limitations on the precision of the data (e.g., number of trials, cost, risk, time), and refine the design accordingly.

Connections to Engineering, Technology, and Applications of Science

• Modern civilization depends on major technological systems. (HS-ESS3-1),(HS-ESS3-3)
• Engineers continuously modify these technological systems by applying scientific knowledge and engineering design practices to increase benefits while decreasing costs and risks. (HS-ESS3-2),(HS-ESS3-4)
• New technologies can have deep impacts on society and the environment, including some that were not anticipated. (HS-ESS3-3)
• Analysis of costs and benefits is a critical aspect of decisions about technology. (HS-ESS3-2)

Connections to Nature of Science

• Science is a result of human endeavors, imagination, and creativity. (HS-ESS3-3)
• Science and technology may raise ethical issues for which science, by itself, does not provide answers and solutions. (HS-ESS3-2)
• Science knowledge indicates what can happen in natural systems—not what should happen. The latter involves ethics, values, and human decisions about the use of knowledge. (HS-ESS3-2)
• Many decisions are not made using science alone, but rely on social and cultural contexts to resolve issues. (HS-ESS3-2)

Cause and Effect

• Empirical evidence is required to differentiate between cause and correlation and make claims about specific causes and effects. (HS-ESS3-1)

Systems and System Models

• When investigating or describing a system, the boundaries and initial conditions of the system need to be defined and their inputs and outputs analyzed and described using models. (HS-ESS3-6)

Stability and Change

• Change and rates of change can be quantified and modeled over very short or very long periods of time. Some system changes are irreversible. (HS-ESS3-3),(HS-ESS3-5)
• Feedback (negative or positive) can stabilize or destabilize a system. (HS-ESS3-4)