Looks Count!
Community Planning, Natural Resource Protection and the Visual Environment
An Interdisciplinary Middle School Curriculum Unit
for Social Studies, Language Arts, Math, Science, and Art

Unit Table of Contents

I. Cover Page & Table of Contents and Preface

II. Pre/Post Test

III. Lesson Plans
(Lesson Plans Listed below are Adobe Acrobat pdf file format)

1. Discovering Your Sense of Place (introductory stations)
2. What Is Suburban Sprawl?
3. Neighborhood View Teams
4. What do you want your Community to look like?
5. Who Decides the Visual Appearance of Our Community?
6. Buildings And More
7. Conducting A Community Survey
8. What’s The Message?
9. Who Lives in My Community: Local Demographics and Graphing
10. Who Owns The Land—A Plat Map Comparison
11. Here's what's Great About My Community
12. Sharing With the Community
13. Biodiversity Study: Disturbed v. Undisturbed
14. Artificial Nest Predation Investigation
15. Changing the Land

IV. Science Extensions (not included)

1. Project WET Curriculum & Activity Guide (Water Education for Teachers) activities that address human/environment interactions, water quality & quantity, decision-making:

§ Color Me A Watershed p. 223 (students observe land use changes over time and how this affects the quantity of runoff);

§ Sparkling Water p.348 (students design their own wastewater treatment process);

2. Dragonfly Pond (from Project WILD Aquatic Activity Guide, p. 154)

3. Changing the Land: Timber Wolf (adapted with permission from Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources) in EE News Spring 2000. (Students study how land use changes affect the habitat and distribution of wolves.)

4. Stream monitoring activities – compare water quality of stream in downtown, suburb and rural area (i.e. ‘developed,’ ‘developing,’ and ‘developed’ areas);

5. Compare diversity of plants, butterflies, birds, habitats, etc. in developed areas with those found in undeveloped areas.

V. New Vocabulary Words

VI. Unit Assessment

VII. Michigan Content Standards Addressed

VIII. Curriculum Resources

Download
Looks Count 72 page book
(Adobe Acrobat PDF File 1.87 Mb)

To download a free copy of Acrobat Reader for reading the files, click [Get Acrobat Reader]

Funded by

a grant from the Dunn Foundation, Warwick, RI

and the Wege Foundation of Grand Rapids, MI

Developed by

Joan Chadde, Jean Dunstan, Linda Rulison, Ruth Ann Smith and Ashley Hanson

Western Upper Peninsula Center for Science, Mathematics & Environmental Education

Michigan Technological University

1400 Townsend Dr., Houghton, MI 49931-1295

Tel: 906-487-3341 Email: jchadde@mtu.edu

Website: http://www.wupcenter.mtu.edu/

Copyright © 2005 by Michigan Technological University.

All rights reserved. The sale or commercial use of text, illustrations, photographs, and graphic images presented are not permitted. Educational uses are permitted on a limited basis, provided credit is given to the authors. Prior written permission of the primary author is required before broadly disseminating any part of this publication in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise.