Forest Products
Objectives
- Students will work in teams to generate lists of forest products.
- Students will collect data on their own forest product usage.
EALRS
- Communications 3.1, 3.2, 3.3
- The student uses communication strategies and skills to work effectively with others.
- Math 3.2
- Students will make predictions and make inferences.
- Economics 1.1
- Students will understand the impact of scarcity on their own lives and others.
Materials
- One large piece of paper and marker per group of 3-4
- Where are Forest Products? Worksheet
- Your Forest Product Use Tracking sheet (1 per student)
Procedure
Note: You can deliver this lesson all in one day or spread it out over 2-3 days.
- Begin by having students define a forest product. Once an agreement is reached on a definition, ask them to guess on how many forest products they think they use daily. Consider having them write the definition down in a vocabulary notebook.
- Divide the class up into groups of 3-4, and distribute to each group one large piece of paper and marker.
- Have students decide on a recorder to write down their answers.
- Tell teams they will have a 10-minute time limit to come up with as many forest products as possible. Offer students a procedure for solving disputes quickly, like voting, to keep teams moving.
- Have teams predict a number of items they will have on their list.
- Consider having teams compete for the highest number of items.
- When the time limit is up, post the lists and discuss the results. How close were they to their earlier guesses? How many different items did they come up with as a class?
- Distribute a copy of the Where are Forest Products? Worksheet, to each student or group, and discuss areas they found, and areas they may have missed on their lists. You may also want to introduce vocabulary terms at this time.
- Now tell students they will go without forest products, with the exception of the building, for the rest of the school day or class period. Discuss what items they will be able to use, and which will have to be moved aside. Desks, chairs, books, etc… will be moved aside, and students will sit on the floor. Discuss what lunch time and recess might be like. Discuss what it would be like to go without forest products for an extended period of time, and what might cause a real need to go without them. You may end this exercise after discussion.
- Distribute Your Forest Product Use Tracking Sheet and explain that students will track their own forest product use at home and over the next day. Model filling in the sheet with a couple items you use during the remainder of the day. Assign students homework of taking home the sheet and continuing to fill it out throughout the evening.
Extensions
- Math: Create graphs of individual or class forest product use. You may extend the tracking over several days and graph the number of items used by day, or choose several forest products and bar graph usage to see which products are used most.
- Art: Create a collage of forest products.