Grade 3
Social Studies
Unit: 04
Lesson: 03
Suggested Duration: 4 days
Grade 03 Social Studies Unit 04 Exemplar Lesson 03: Human Characteristics of Communities
This lesson is one approach to teaching the State Standards associated with this unit. Districts are encouraged to customize this lesson by
supplementing with district-approved resources, materials, and activities to best meet the needs of learners. The duration for this lesson is only a
recommendation, and districts may modify the time frame to meet students’ needs. To better understand how your district may be implementing
CSCOPE lessons, please contact your child’s teacher. (For your convenience, please find linked the TEA Commissioner’s List of State Board of
Education Approved Instructional Resources and Midcycle State Adopted Instructional Materials.)
Lesson Synopsis
Students study and compare landforms and the need for modifications of landforms. They learn that people adapt to the environment where they live
and make modifications to the physical environment.
TEKS
The Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) listed below are the standards adopted by the State Board of Education, which are required by
Texas law. Any standard that has a strike-through (e.g. sample phrase) indicates that portion of the standard is taught in a previous or subsequent
unit. The TEKS are available on the Texas Education Agency website at http://www.tea.state.tx.us/index2.aspx?id=6148.
3.4
Geography. The student understands how humans adapt to variations in the physical environment. The student is
expected to:
3.4B Identify and compare how people in different communities adapt to or modify the physical environment in which
they live such as deserts, mountains, wetlands, and plains.
3.4D Describe the effects of human processes such as building new homes, conservation, and pollution in shaping
the landscape.
3.4E Identify and compare the human characteristics of various regions.
Social Studies Skills TEKS
3.17
Social studies skills. The student applies critical-thinking skills to organize and use information acquired from a
variety of valid sources, including electronic technology. The student is expected to:
3.17E Interpret and create visuals, including graphs, charts, tables, timelines, illustrations, and maps.
3.18
Social studies skills. The student communicates in written, oral, and visual forms. The student is expected to:
3.18A Express ideas orally based on knowledge and experiences.
GETTING READY FOR INSTRUCTION
Performance Indicators
Grade 03 Social Studies Unit 04 PI 03
Draw a picture of the physical environment of a real or imagined region. Add human characteristics to the picture, and then write and illustrate a story about an event in the
life of a third grader living in the region. In the story, use academic language to tell about how the environment affects people’s lives, including how people adapt to and
modify the environment. Tell the story to a classmate.
Standard(s): 3.4B , 3.17E , 3.18A
ELPS ELPS.c.1E , ELPS.c.3E
Key Understandings
Physical features of the earth impact how humans live and work as they adapt to and modify the environment to meet basic needs.
- How do people in different communities adapt to or modify the physical environment?
- What are the effects of human processes in shaping the landscape?
- How are human characteristics of various regions the same and different?
Vocabulary of Instruction
Modification
Physical characteristics
Desert
Plains
Pollution
Last Updated 05/17/13
Print Date 06/20/2013 Printed By Karen Johnson, MIDLAND ISD
Adaptation
Human characteristics
Wetlands
Human process
Region
Landform
Physical environment
Mountains
Conservation
page 1 of 10 Grade 3
Social Studies
Unit: 04
Lesson: 03
Suggested Duration: 4 days
Materials
Refer to the Notes for Teacher section for materials.
Attachments
All attachments associated with this lesson are referenced in the body of the lesson. Due to considerations for grading or student assessment,
attachments that are connected with Performance Indicators or serve as answer keys are available in the district site and are not accessible on
the public website.
Teacher Resource: PowerPoint: Landforms and Modifications
Handout: Landforms Chart
Handout: The Effects of Human Modifications on our Land
Teacher Resource: The Effects of Human Modifications on our Land KEY
Resources
None identified
Advance Preparation
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Become familiar with content and procedures for the lesson, including ways people modify the community.
Become familiar with human modifications within the local community.
Refer to the Instructional Focus Document for specific content to include in the lesson.
Select appropriate sections of the textbook and other classroom materials that support the learning for this lesson.
Preview available resources and websites according to district guidelines.
Create posters of landforms for Day 1.
Prepare materials and handouts as needed.
Background Information
Teachers research human modifications within the local community. Landforms are features of the Earth’s surface. They include plains, mountains, deserts, hills, and
canyons that exist in the physical environment.
GETTING READY FOR INSTRUCTION
Teachers are encouraged to supplement and substitute resources, materials, and activities to meet the needs of learners. These lessons are one
approach to teaching the TEKS/Specificity as well as addressing the Performance Indicators associated with each unit. District personnel may create
original lessons using the Content Creator in the Tools Tab. All originally authored lessons can be saved in the “My CSCOPE” Tab within the “My
Content” area.
INSTRUCTIONAL PROCEDURES
Instructional Procedures
ENGAGE – Our Community Modifications for Night
Notes for Teacher
NOTE: 1 Day = 50 minutes
Suggested Day 1 - 10 minutes
1. Facilitate a discussion where students think about the differences in their community Materials
during the day and during the night. Questions could include:
Paper for T-Chart
Do people modify the community in any way to cope with the dark of
TEKS: 3.4B, 3.17E
night?
Instructional Note:
Is there a difference in the community in the day and in the night?
Partial list:
At night, who runs the community? The hospitals? Who are the first
responders at night?
Street lights
What kinds of things do communities do to make the community safer
Glow in the dark stripes painted on road ways
when it is dark?
Night shift personnel in hospitals, police
departments, and fire departments.
2. Continue the discussion to help students understand that people who live in a
Information campaigns to get people to voluntarily
community make modifications so that the community is safer in the dark of night.
be inside their homes by a certain time (curfew.)
Guide students to provide summarizing statements such as:
Ways people change the environment, such as putting up streetlights,
Last Updated 05/17/13
Print Date 06/20/2013 Printed By Karen Johnson, MIDLAND ISD
page 2 of 10 Grade 3
Social Studies
Unit: 04
Lesson: 03
Suggested Duration: 4 days
are called modifications. The landscape is no longer the same because
people have changed it; they have modified it.
3. Facilitate a discussion to help students understand the term adaptation. Ask
questions such as:
What do we do when it is very cold outside? (Put on coats, turn up the
heater, build a house with a heater, etc.)
What do we do when it rains? (Use umbrellas people have invented to protect
us, etc.)
4. Help students understand that the ways people change to fit the environment are
adaptations.
People adapt to the environment when they change themselves or what
they do to match the environment. People modify the environment when
they change the environment to fit their needs.
5. Students brainstorm a list of changes - either adaptations or modifications- they can
identify.
EXPLORE – Modifying Landforms
Suggested Day 1 (continued) - 25 minutes
1. Continue thinking about modifications. Review the term landform from previous
learning and turn the discussion to ways people modify the physical environment of
the community as a result of landforms. For example,
Materials:
People build tunnels through mountains, modifying, or changing, the
landform. They build dams to harness the power of water to provide
electricity and to control flooding. The dam is a human characteristic that
modifies the environment.
2. Display pictures of four types of environments: Deserts, Mountains, Wetlands,
Plains. (See the Teacher Resource: PowerPoint: Landforms and Modifications.)
3. Post pictures of types of physical environments on chart paper around the room (1
type of environment per chart.)
4. Provide information for students to research the landforms and environments
(textbook, websites, other classroom and library materials.)
5. Group students into four.
6. Student groups research one of the four environments and write the important
descriptive information on the chart under that picture. They include a definition and
describe ways people in a community modify the landform.
photo illustrations of: deserts, mountains, wetlands,
plains
information on landforms (from textbook, websites,
other classroom and library materials)
chart/butcher paper (4 pieces)
paper for students to create graphic organizer
Attachments:
Teacher Resource: PowerPoint: Landforms and
Modifications
Handout: Landforms Chart (1 per student)
TEKS: 3.4B, 3.17E
Instructional Note:
Conduct and internet search for visual examples of
land modifications such as terracing and irrigation,
bridges and roads.
Depending on class size, multiple groups may be
needed to research each environment/landform
7. The teacher monitors each group, ensuring understanding and checking for
accuracy of the students’ information.
8. Groups report their findings to the rest of the class and teach them about the
physical environment and associated landforms.
9. Distribute the Handout: Landforms Chart.
10. Groups report on the environment/landform they studied, including descriptions and
ways people have modified the landform/environment.
11. While groups are reporting, the rest of the class takes notes in the appropriate
section.
EXPLAIN – Modifying Landforms
Suggested Day 1 (continued) - 15 minutes
1. On the back of the student Handout: Landforms Chart, students draw a picture
one of the environments/landforms being modified. Students may include
themselves in the picture.
Materials
2. Students include a caption for the picture that explains the human process being
employed in shaping the landscape.
TEKS: 3.4B, 3.17E
Handout: Landforms Chart from Explore section
3. Student partners tell each other a story about the change taking place in the
picture. Tell the story from the point of view of a third-grader (in the picture) who
lives in the community being changed.
EXPLORE – Effects of Modification
Last Updated 05/17/13
Print Date 06/20/2013 Printed By Karen Johnson, MIDLAND ISD
Suggested Day 2 - 35 minutes
page 3 of 10 Grade 3
Social Studies
Unit: 04
Lesson: 03
Suggested Duration: 4 days
1. Facilitate a discussion where students extend their thinking to consider the effects of Attachments:
the modifications. Choose several modifications to discuss. (If desired, use the
Handout: Effects of Human Modifications on
Handout: Effects of Human Modifications on our Land and the Teacher
our Land
Resource: Effects of Human Modifications on our Land KEY.)
Teacher Resource: Effects of Human
2. Model thinking, then lead students in their thinking and guide note-taking on the
Modifications on our Land KEY
handout listed above or a graphic organizer of the teacher's choice. Include
questions such as:
TEKS: 3.4D
What problem were people trying to solve, or what need were they
trying to meet, when they made the modification to the environment?
Was the problem solved or need met?
What were the consequences of the modification?
What were the positive consequences?
What were the negative consequences?
Do the changes continue to affect the community? How?
Instructional Note:
Make sure students understand the terms listed below as ways of
understanding social studies.
Political
Economic
Geographic
Social
3. Student pairs continue to discuss the effects of modifications, adding information to
their graphic organizer (Handout: Effects of Human Modifications on our Land.)
4. Teacher circulates, probing with questions, clarifying and correcting information,
and providing additional information as needed. (See Teacher Resource: Effects
of Human Modifications on our Land KEY.)
5. Student pairs share their information with the rest of the class.
6. Teacher clarifies and corrects information.
EXPLAIN – Effects of Modification
Suggested Day 2 (continued) - 15 minutes
Suggested Day 3 - 20 minutes
1. Students write and tell the story of one of the modifications. In the imaginary story,
the student encounters a problem, goes through the decision-making process to
consider whether to modify the environment or not, and then explains the effects of
the modification.
TEKS: 3.4D; 3.18A
2. Students tell their story to a partner.
ELABORATE – Responding to Elected Officials
Suggested Day 3 - 30 minutes
1. Summarize the learning from this unit (Human Characteristics of Communities) by
considering the Key Understandings and Guiding Questions.
Instructional Note:
Concerning the written letters, students use their best handwriting,
complete sentences and correct grammar.
Physical features of the earth impact how humans live and work as they
adapt to and modify the environment to meet basic needs.
- How do people in different communities adapt to or modify the physical environment?
- What are the effects of human processes in shaping the landscape? (building new
homes, conservation, and pollution)
- How are human characteristics of various regions the same and different? (address the
physical environments studied: deserts, mountains, wetlands, and plains)
Communities have human characteristics of place that help people meet
their needs.
- How do people in communities meet their needs for government, education,
communication, transportation, and recreation?
- How have individuals, events and ideas changed communities?
- Who/what are the individuals, events, and ideas that have helped to shape communities?
- How have individuals, events, and ideas contributed to the expansion of existing
communities or to the creation of new communities?
2. As a class, students summarize the discussion by writing a letter to a community
leader expressing an idea or suggestion of modifications that would improve the
community, solve a problem.
EVALUATE
Last Updated 05/17/13
Print Date 06/20/2013 Printed By Karen Johnson, MIDLAND ISD
Suggested Day 4 - 50 minutes
page 4 of 10 Grade 3
Social Studies
Unit: 04
Lesson: 03
Suggested Duration: 4 days
Grade 03 Social Studies Unit 04 PI 03
TEKS: 3.4B, 3.4C, 3.4D; 3.17E; 3.18A
Draw a picture of the physical environment of a real or imagined region. Add human characteristics
to the picture, and then write and illustrate a story about an event in the life of a third grader living in
the region. In the story, use academic language to tell about how the environment affects people’s
lives, including how people adapt to and modify the environment. Tell the story to a classmate.
Standard(s): 3.4B , 3.17E , 3.18A
ELPS ELPS.c.1E , ELPS.c.3E
Last Updated 05/17/13
Print Date 06/20/2013 Printed By Karen Johnson, MIDLAND ISD
page 5 of 10 Grade 3
Social Studies
Unit: 04 Lesson: 03
Landforms Chart
Desert
Mountain
Wetlands
Microsoft. (Designer). (2010). Clip art [Web Graphic]. Retrieved from http://office.microsoft.com/en‐us/images/ ©2012, TESCC
05/16/13
Plains
page 1 of 1
Grade 3
Social Studies
Unit: 04 Lesson: 03
The Effects of Human Modifications on Our Land
Landform
Modification
Desert
Irrigating crops
Desert
Digging wells for water
Desert
Air conditioning
Desert
Planting lawns and non-native
plants
Mountains
Extracting resources
Mountains
Creating terrace farms
Mountains
Building roads and homes
Mountains
Setting up wind farms
Wetlands
Reclaiming land to build
homes and businesses
©2012, TESCC
Effect
05/02/13
page 1 of 2
Grade 3
Social Studies
Unit: 04 Lesson: 03
Wetlands
Extracting resources
Plains
Creating large-scale farms
Plains
Over-plowing/over-planting
Plains
Using fertilizer
Plains
Irrigating crops
©2012, TESCC
05/02/13
page 2 of 2
Grade 3
Social Studies
Unit: 04 Lesson: 03
The Effects of Human Modifications on Our Land KEY
Possible effects to consider
Landform Modification
Political Effect
Economic Effect
Desert
Irrigating crops
Diverts fresh water from
cities and down-stream
needs; conflict between
agricultural and urban use
Increases the impact of
agriculture on the area's
economy (higher yield)
Desert
Digging wells for
water
Provides communities
needed water access while
not having to provide largescale services to support a
vast infrastructure
Supplying needed water
for growth of cities and
industry
Desert
Air conditioning
In the United States, states
with harsh climates gain
political power as more
people can manage living
and working in desert
climates
Allows businesses to
operate during all seasons
Desert
Planting lawns and
non-native plants
Can promote city
beautification, attract
businesses
Mountains
Extracting minerals
Mountains
Creating terrace
farms
Use of scarce water
creates demand for political
action to secure ongoing
sources
Grants political power to
the region according to the
amount of demand (wants)
for the mineral
Grants political power to
the region as a
breadbasket to feed the
people
©2012, TESCC
Provides paying jobs and
extracting valuable
minerals to be sold;
Provides paying jobs,
provides a creative
approach to
geographically limited
regions
05/02/13
Geographic
Effect
Social Effect
Impacts the water table
using up the limited water
supplies in the desert;
fertilizer runoff can be a
pollution source
Can lower ground water
levels leading to a
reduction of water in
streams and lakes, a
deterioration of water
quality, and land
subsidence
Air conditioning units use
considerable electricity
from plants using
nonrenewable resources;
cooling agents like CFCs
are a greenhouse gas;
can promote unhealthy
indoor air quality
Can use a great deal of
water that is already
scarce in desert climates
More regions can be
made available for
farming and settlement
Poor mining practices can
significantly alter the
landscape and disrupt
natural habitats
Can significantly alter the
landscape, improves the
efficiency of water use
Can provide increased
opportunities for
communities in remote
locations
Can provide food in
more geographically
challenged regions
Supplying needed water
supply for population
uses
Better living and working
conditions leads to the
migration of people to
sunny climates
Beautification can
encourage migration and
population growth
page 1 of 2
Grade 3
Social Studies
Unit: 04 Lesson: 03
Mountains
Building roads and
homes
Provides access to the rest
of the region and world
Mountains
Setting up wind
farms
Wetlands
Reclaiming land to
build homes and
businesses
Can provide new political
power for regions that may
lack traditional sources of
economic power
Can complicate political
efforts to sustain
communities affected by
natural disaster
Wetlands
Extracting
resources
Reduces dependence on
foreign energy sources
Plains
Creating largescale farms
Empowers rural
communities
Plains
Over-plowing/overplanting
Can change settlement
patterns and regional
political power
Provides a more
connected community;
provides access to
business; new roads can
provide access to
resources that can be
recovered
Provides jobs and
alternative options for
consumer power
consumption
Creates jobs and new
economic opportunities in
regions generally
considered lucrative due
to a location on or near
coastlines
Provides jobs and a great
deal of income for
business and workers,
lowers energy costs,
access to high quality
timber
Provides new income
possibilities; increases
efficiency of farming
Can make the land and
continued farming
unviable
Plains
Using fertilizer
Fertilizer can be dangerous
to produce requiring
regulations for safety
Can vastly improve
farming efficiency and
yields
Plains
Irrigating crops
Diverts fresh water from
cities and down-stream
needs; conflict between
agricultural and urban use
Increasing the impact of
agriculture on the area's
economy (higher yield)
©2012, TESCC
05/02/13
Some services can be
very difficult to provide in
and may require
significant efforts to
manage remote regions
(wildfires, mudslides,
avalanche)
Visually unappealing; can
be noisy; can disrupt
migration and habitats of
wildlife
Can significantly alter the
natural habitat of wildlife
and reduces the ability to
manage flooding and
natural disasters like
hurricanes
Risks possible pollution to
environmentally sensitive
regions
Regions generally
considered too remote
can sustain communities
Can introduce non-native
plants and insects
Provides access to
inexpensive food
Can create Dust Bowl-like
conditions, can
significantly impact water
use
Can pollute ground water
from runoff
Can result in migration
out of the region
Can impact the water
table using up limited
water supplies
Can be located in
geographically difficult
regions and power
distant communities
Provides new access to
coastal regions for new
communities
Can encourage the
growth of new
communities in remote
locations
Promotes greater
efficiency for lawns and
gardens among the
members of a
community
More regions can be
made available for
farming and settlement
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