top of page
This site was designed with the
.com
website builder. Create your website today.Start Now

Unit Overview

Driving Question:

How can we make smart choices as consumers and global citizens that foster sustainability? 

Summary

This unit is designed to teach students about sustainability and the ways in which it effects the world around them. The goal of this lesson is to empower children to make changes in their own lives to support other people, animals, and the environment. 

Concepts 

  • Consumers

  • True Price

  • The Planet

  • Materials Economy

  • Food System

  • Human Rights

  • Needs

  • Benefits

  • Injustice

  • Poverty

  • Supply and Demand

  • Migrant Workers

  • Cause and Effect

  • The Future

  • Economic Factors

  • Innovation

  • Collaboration

  • Consequences

  • Solutions

  • Change 

  • Global 

  • Entrepreneur

  • Ecosystem

  • Scarcity

  • Invasive

  • Adapt

  • Fragmentation

  • Human-Environment Interactions

  • Deforestation

  • Population Growth

  • Modificaiton

  • Changing Habitats

  • Resource Avalibility

  • Endangered

  • Responsibility

  • Culture

  • Development

  • Taking Action

  • Citizens

  • Local

  • Community

  • Interconnected

  • Personal Choices

Grade Levels

Grades 3rd-5th

Unit Length

2 Weeks

Guding Questions

1. What is a consumer? (factual)

2. What are consumer choices? (factual)

3. What influences consumer choices? (factual)

4. What makes a consumer choice sustainable? non-sustainable? (conceptual)

5. How do individual consumer choices affect other people, animals, and the planet? (conceptual)

6. What are human rights? Who protects them? (factual)

7. What do people need to survive and thrive/be healthy/happy? (factual)

8. How are human rights connected to our food system? (conceptual)

9. How do individuals influence others’ rights? (conceptual)

10. Is it more important to have access to the foods I want at my grocery store than to make sure that farm workers are being treated fairly? (provocative)

11. How does the environment influence/affect a community’s natural resources? (conceptual)

12. What is an ecosystem? (factual)

13. In what ways can we make our community a more sustainable environment for native plants and animals? (provocative)

​

Generalizations

Students will understand that:

  1. Consumer choices can have positive and negative effects on people, animals, and the planet.

  2. The materials economy connects all living beings and the environment.

  3. Marketing techniques, peer influences, price, and availability influence consumer choices.

  4. Consumer choices can have positive and negative effects on people, animals, and the planet.

  5. Changes in the environment affect the survival of the wildlife, thereby affecting humans’ survival.

  6. Culture and environment dictate what resources are accessible to specific communities.

  7. Human choices and manipulation of the environment directly and indirectly affect natural habitats.

  8. Collaborating with others can promote change.

  9. Actions have effects beyond immediate reactions.

  10. Consumer choice and innovation can drive sustainable production and consumption patterns

bottom of page