Finding Refuge for Refugees, PBL Unit
This unit was written for Grade 5 by Deena Abutaba
CORE 21 UNIT PLANNING WORKSHEET
Name: Deena Abutaha
Grade Level: Grade Five
Unit topic: Refugees around the world
Curriculum Area or Areas to be integrated: English Language Arts and Social Studies.
Duration of the Unit: Two Months
Statement of the Problem to be solved:
Around the world, many different people are forced to leave their homes and forced to live in new places they do not know. How can we help these refugees learn to live in their new space and how to integrate into new societies?
Entry Document: Read What is a Refugee by Elise Gravel
Standards:
Twenty-first-century skills and standards
● Global Awareness
○ Students will learn about the causes of different conflicts and situations, in the world, that resulted in the displacement of people from their homes.
● Creativity and Innovation
○ Students will be required to create a template or plan that countries could follow to help refugees acclimatize to their new homes and situations.
● Critical Thinking
○ Students will be required to analyze different refugee situations and what worked and what didn’t to devise a new plan for helping refugees.
● Collaboration
○ Students will need to work together to create their final project showing their ideas on how to help the refugees.
● Communication
○ Students will be asked to present their information to a number of community leaders.
● Information Literacy
○ Students will be required to research information about different refugee situations around the world. They will need to learn about how to locate proper sources and how to evaluate them for content and accuracy
● ITC Literacy
○ Students will need to use technology to prepare the presentations they will need to be familiar with how to create slideshows and how to integrate different multimedia aspects into their slideshow.
● Initiative and self-direction
○ Students will have to locate resources and make decisions about what they think is the best way to help refugees and will have to decide the direction in which they want to go.
Content Standards
Aero: Social Studies
Connections and Conflict Students will understand the causes and effects of interaction among societies, including trade, systems of international exchange, war, and diplomacy.
● 2.5.b. Explain varied causes and effects of conflict and cooperation among individuals, groups, societies, and nations in the following categories: politics, economics, geography, ethnicity/race/gender, and culture.
● 2.5.c. Explain the major ways groups, societies, and nations interact with one another (e.g., trade, cultural exchanges, and international organizations).
Common Core
Reading
● CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.5.1: Quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.
● CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.5.3: Explain the relationships or interactions between two or more individuals, events, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text based on specific information in the text.
● CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.5.6: Analyze multiple accounts of the same event or topic, noting important similarities and differences in the point of view they represent.
● CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.5.7: Draw on information from multiple print or digital sources, demonstrating the ability to locate an answer to a question quickly or to solve a problem efficiently.
● CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.5.8: Explain how an author uses reasons and evidence to support particular points in a text, identifying which reasons and evidence support which point(s).
● CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RI.5.9: Integrate information from several texts on the same topic in order to write or speak about the subject knowledgeably.
Speaking and Listening
● CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.5.1: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 5 topics and texts, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly.
● CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.5.4: Report on a topic or text or present an opinion, sequencing ideas logically and using appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details to support main ideas or themes; speak clearly at an understandable pace.
● CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.5.5: Include multimedia components (e.g., graphics, sound) and visual displays in presentations when appropriate to enhance the development of main ideas or themes.
Objectives:
Students will compare different ways that refugees are created and where they are forced to move, i.e. neighboring countries, countries on other continents, or nearby cities. Students will analyze how refugees are treated in their new homes to see which strategies do or do not work. They will use their analysis to create a plan to help countries and/or organizations help refugees integrate into their new homes.
Students will become more aware of what transpires in other countries in relation to refugees thus increasing their global awareness.
Students will learn how to use computers and the internet to research about refugees and to create their presentations at the end of the unit.
Students will learn how to determine if a source is reliable.
Assessments:
Formative Assessments:
● Advanced organizers:
○ Inquiry Chart as a formative assessment to help the teacher understand what students know about refugees.
○ Venn Diagrams to compare multiple documents or scenarios.
● School mandated reading pre-assessment about comparison and inference.
● Anecdotal evidence from students as they work in groups to see how they fulfill the collaboration standards.
● Practice speeches during class to assess how much assistance they need to meet presentation standards.
Summative Assessments:
● School mandated reading post-assessment about comparison and inference.
● The students will compare multiple situations that resulted in the movement of refugees. They will analyze the causes of displacement and the actions conducted by nearby countries and create a template to apply to future situations to help countries take in and support future refugees. Students will then be required to present the information to an audience of NGO representatives and parents and administration.
Rubrics
Summative
● Reading (same as formative)
● Final Project (Includes public speaking)
Formative
● Reading (same as summative)
● Public Speaking
Essential Questions
● Is an evacuee a refugee?
● Is conflict ever justified?
● How do you think it would feel to be forced to leave your home?
● What does it mean to be cooperative?
Sequence of instruction
1. What is a refugee? How much do you know about refugees?
2. How to do a keyword search online.
3. How to determine if a source is reputable.
4. Compare and Contrast two documents: (Venn diagram)
7. Rwanda
8. Guest Speakers: UNHCR
9. Cuba
10. China
11. Syria
12. Guest Speaker Collateral Repair Project
13. Natural disasters
14. Helping refugees: United Nations and other Non-Profit Organizations
15. Refusing refugees: How some nations rejected the entry of refugees.
16. Public Speaking: Volume, Pronunciation, and pace
17. Public Speaking Sequencing ideas
18. Independent work (multiple sessions): Begin collecting information about refugees and putting together the final presentation.
Differentiation
● Students will have multiple resources available to them for research
○ SIIRS Discovery
○ World Book
○ Brainpop
○ Physical Books
● Students will be allowed to divide the work in their group so that different students can work on a part that matches their strengths.
Special Needs
● Students with learning difficulties will have assistance from teaching staff to help them understand their topics.
Potential Problems
● Students may need extra instruction to understand some vocabulary.
● Students may need extra time to complete their projects.
● Students may have stage fright and will need help with overcoming it.
● Students may need extra instruction on the use of a computer.
Level of Rigor:
Students will be working in quadrant D as they will be analyzing different refugee situation and then work on solving real-world problem of how they can acclimatize to their new situation.
Instructional tools
● Videos
● Books
● Computers or iPads
● Projector
● Notebooks
● Pens or pencils
Vocabulary
● Refugee
● Evacuee
● Immigrant
● Expatriate
● Repatriate
● Sanitation
● NGO Non-Govermental Organizations
● United Nations
Audience
● Students will present their final product to representatives from the Collateral Repair Project (CRP), the United Nations(UN) as well as school administration and parents. The main audience will be the representatives from the CRP and the UN, in hopes to gain insight into whether their projects might be feasible.