The Lorax-Pollution

Author: Rachel Starr

Subject(s):
English Language Arts
Science
Grade/Level: 2
nd
grade
Length: 30-40 minutes
Essential Question: What is pollution? What are the different forms of pollution? How does
pollution affect the surrounding land/air/water? Can pollution be seen anywhere? Is there
pollution in your community? What are ways in which you or the community can reverse
pollution?
Performance Objective: The students will understand the basic components of pollution. They
will know that there are different types of pollution and how it can affect the area and community
around them. Specifically, the students will understand that people are the cause of pollution and
that there are ways that the community can fix pollution problems.
Academic Language: Pollution, smog. The students will use this academic language when
discussing the different types of pollution during the book. Also the students will use this
academic language through this science unit. The students will reference the term smog when
discussing about types of air pollution.
Lesson Summary: Before this lesson, the teacher has introduced the new science unit involving
Recycle and Reuse. The students will use this knowledge when talking about pollution. During
this lesson, the teacher will read The Lorax by Dr. Seuss, as a means to explore the idea of
pollution. During the reading, the class will collectively create a cause and effect chart of the
different causes of three types of pollution and what their effect was on the community. After this
lesson, the students will learn about what it means to Recycle.
Standards/Performance Indicators:
New York State Core Curriculum
Standard 4: The Living Environment
Key Idea 7- Human decisions and activities have had a profound impact on the physical
and living environments.
7.1c- Humans, as individuals, or communities, change environments in ways that can be
either helpful or harmful, for themselves or other organisms.
Next Generation Science Standards
Earth Systems: Processes that Shape the Earth
2-ESS1-1: Use information from several sources to provide evidence that Earth events
can occur quickly or slowly.
Common Core Learning Standards
Reading: Literature
-RL.2.1-Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to
demonstrate understanding of key details in a text
-RL.2.3-Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges.
-RL2.7- Use information gained from the illustrations and words in a print of digital text
to demonstrate understanding of its characters, setting, or plot.
Speaking and Listening
-SL.2.1- Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners about grade 2
topics and texts with peers and adults in small and larger groups.
-SL2.2- Recount or describe key ideas or details from a text read aloud or information
presented orally or through other media.

Instructional Materials:
-The Lorax by Dr. Seuss
-Cause and Effect Chart
-Magnets
-Easel
-Marker
-Post It notes
Resources:
The Lorax by: Dr. Seuss checked out from the Grand Island Public Library
Room Arrangement & Materials and Resources Placement:
The students will be sitting on the rug facing the speaker. The speaker will be sitting in a chair at
the front of the rug. The easel will be stationed next to the speaker so that the Cause and Effect
Chart can be viewed by all students. The Chart will be posted on the easel with magnets and a
marker will be within reach so that the speaker can use it when necessary.
Initiating Strategy: The students will have just finished morning meeting and are already on the
rug, ready to learn. The teacher will tell the students that today we are reading a story for science.
This story is called The Lorax. (Keep in mind the students will most likely chatter with their
neighbor about how theyve seen the movie and scenes from it.) Tell the students that this book is
slightly different from the movie, and that there is something important that they may not have
noticed.
Teaching Procedure:
Before Reading
-The teacher will ask the students Have you ever heard of the word, pollution? What does it look
like?
-Tell the students to find their thinking partners
-Tell the students to discuss what the word pollution might mean, if they have seen it in their
community, and if there can be different types of pollution
-Allow the students to discuss with their partners and listen to the conversations
-Use an attention getter to focus the students back on the teacher
-Choose volunteers to share their thinking on what pollution means
-The teacher will write pollution on the Topic line on the Cause and Effect Chart
-Tell the students that today we will be discussing what pollution looks like in the story The
Lorax
-Tell the students that it is their job to look for clues in the story and the illustrations that cause
pollution, and what the effects are on the community.
During Reading
-The teacher will begin to read the story and after the first page, tell the children to listen to the
words and notice the illustrations.
-Stop on page 12. Have the students discuss with their partners what they see in the pictures
-Choose one volunteer to share what they noticed about the pictures.
-Ask the children Does this look like the community has been polluted? Does this picture fit our
definition of pollution?
-The students should respond with No!
-Continue reading
-Stop on page 17. Tell the students to make a prediction. What do you think the Once-ler will do
next?
-Stop on page 30. Tell the students to make a prediction; What do you think will happen with the
factory and the trees? How do you think the factory will cause pollution?
-Stop after reading page 35. Review with the students the cause and effect chart. Model for the
students that the cause is cutting down trees for the factory and the effect is that it is making the
animals leave the community since they have no food because their source of food was from the
trees. Ask the students If this was real life, what would most likely happen to the animals?
-Stop on page 39. Remind the students to keep in mind what the illustrations look like, and hint
towards the sky.
-Continue reading
-Stop on page 40. Return back to the Cause and Effect Chart. Review with the students how the
factory caused air pollution and smog. Discuss the effects it has on the community. Appropriate
answers may be the air is black, and smokey; the Lorax is sick, hes coughing; the birds cant
sing anymore because of all the smog; etc.
-Stop on page 47. Return to the Cause and Effect Chart. The students should on their own, discuss
what the factory is doing to the pond. The cause would be that the factory is dumping glupp or
slopp into the pond, and the effects are turning the pond brown, making the fish leave, etc. Ask
the students If this was real life, what would happen to the fish, if we know that fish need water
to survive?
-Stop after reading page 50. Ask the students to talk with their thinking partners and make a
prediction of what may happen next, now that all the Truffla tress are cut down.
-Stop after reading page 57. Ask the student to talk with their thinking partners, Why is the
Once-ler worrying about the pile of rocks that says unless?
-Ask for a volunteer to share their thinking
-Continue reading until the story is over.

Closure:
After Reading
-Review the cause and effect chart and not that pollution affects the land, water, and air.
-Tell the students to talk with their thinking partners about a solution that they would implement
to reverse pollution.
-Use an attention getter to focus the students attention back on the teacher.
-Choose volunteers to discuss one way they would reverse the pollution in the story or in their
community.
Assessment/Rubrics: The students will be assessed formally through observation. The teacher
will continue to listen in on conversations during think-pair-shares to see if the students are
following along with the story. The teacher will call on a variety of students to have them share
their thinking. The teacher will mentally note if the students are using context clues and
illustrations to discuss their reasoning.
Differentiating Instruction:
The teacher has differentiated instruction by allowing students to use their own thinking and
predictions to explain their reasoning. The students are exposed to different instructional
techniques that benefit all learners.
Transition to the Next Lesson: This lesson prepares students to the harmful ways that humans can
affect the community around them. The next few lessons will be about ways that people can be
helpful to the environment and their community, such as recycling. This science lesson also
previewed a topic that was discussed during guided reading. The students will be able to use the
knowledge gained from this lesson to mentally picture what is happening during the guided
reading story.
Authors Comments & Reflection: (1) I feel that the strengths of this lesson was the use of
vocabulary, and the framework of the lesson. During the science lesson, it was important to stop
at critical points to demonstrate what pollution is, and what it looks like. I continued to use the
vocabulary and definitions to keep describing about pollution, while I was reading along. A
second strength of this lesson was the interaction of the students. Although, most of them knew
what the story was about, or have seen the movie, they still participated in the discussion about
pollution, showing that the students were actively involved. The cause and effect chart was also a
strength because it went into detail what caused the pollution and the effects it had on the
community in the story. Lastly, having the students move around the room and do some writing
allowed me to see what the students are walking away with from this lesson. (2)Some weaknesses
of this lesson are that the text was really long, and that there was not a visual or written diagram,
describing pollution. The Lorax is a very long text, and I underestimated how long it would
really take to read through the whole book. Luckily, knowing that I had ran over my allowed time
for science, I picked a spot in the book to end so that the students could do their quick writing
activity. When reviewing my lesson with Mrs. Shouldice, she suggested that an anchor chart
would have been helpful for ESL and lower level students to refer back to during the think-pair-
shares. (3) From the quick writing activity, I noticed that the students were able to walk away
with the notion that pollution is harmful to the community and environment. This was my goal
for this lesson, so knowing that the students walked away with this concept made me feel
successful. On the post-it notes, some of the students were able to write a solution to the pollution
problem that they saw in the book. Some of them used their prior knowledge from earlier lessons
of ways they could keep their community clean. Most solutions were about planting more tress
and picking up garbage. (4) If I was to conduct this lesson all over again, I would still use this
text, but only read the critical points that show what pollution is. Also, before reading The
Lorax, I would create an anchor chart so that the students could see the definition, and examples
of pollution to put in their schema.