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Lesson Plan

George Washington Carver - An Original Conservationist: The Man, the Scientist, The Artist

George Washington Carver National Monument

Grade Level:

High School: Ninth Grade through Twelfth Grade

Subject:

Science

Lesson Duration:

90 Minutes

Common Core Standards:

9-10.RH.2, 9-10.RH.4, 11-12.RH.2, 11-12.RH.4, 11-12.RH.7, 9-10.SL.2, 9-10.SL.5, 11-12.SL.2, 11-12.SL.5

Additional Standards:

NGSS (MO CLEs): HS-LS2-7. Design, evaluate, and refine a solution for reducing the impacts of human activities on the environment and biodiversity.

Thinking Skills:

Analyzing: Break down a concept or idea into parts and show the relationships among the parts. Creating: Bring together parts (elements, compounds) of knowledge to form a whole and build relationships for NEW situations.

Essential Question

Who was George Washington Carver? How did his past and his passions
affect his work in agriculture?

Objective

This lesson provides foundational information useful for the remaining lessons in this unit. Students will be able to discuss Carver’s personal and professional history, and identify the forces driving his work.

Background

This is lesson one of five in the George Washington Carver - An Original Conservationist unit.

Today’s focus is to gather a basic understanding of who George Washington Carver was, where he came from, how he got his education, what purpose he saw for his life, and the focus of his work. More depth can be added by having students complete presentations over Carver. By breaking the class into groups each group can do their own presentation over the whole topic or can be focused on one portion so that through the whole class all the information is gathered and provided to students.

The lesson is set up so that it can be completed in multiple ways depending on what you want your students to accomplish and how much time you have. Each option may be extended or reduced based on the length of your class period, group size, etc.

Option 1: Worksheet This option is just to basically have your students complete the work sheet individually or in groups. This would be a great option if you want to focus more on George Washington Carver’s scientific work and spend the least amount of time on his history. In an effort to decrease complexity only one version of the worksheet is included. Highlighted questions would be the most important to have students focus on for minimal background information.

Option 2: Mini-Project This option would be to have all students working in groups answer all the questions and create a poster with the information. For this project each group should create a similar poster containing all the information. Pictures should be encouraged. Posters can be placed around the room or in the hallway outside for student encouragement throughout the unit.

Option 3: Problem Based Learning A third alternative is if you decide to do the whole unit as a Problem Based Learning project. In that case you can assign one group the background on George Washington Carver and they can create a digital presentation for the class.

To simplify the assignment for younger students, lower level students or to fit a different time frame the questions can be reduced to only those bolded.

Preparation

Download Teacher Instructions, Student Worksheet, Student Worksheet Answer Sheet, and Rubric.
Locate and print photographs of George Washington Carver, using the provided resource list
Copy worksheet for each student.
Gather posterboard or large construction paper, markers or colored pencils.

Materials

Download Teacher Instructions

Download Student Worksheet

Download Student Worksheet Key

Download Rubric

Lesson Hook/Preview

Who was George Washington Carver? How did his past and his passions
affect his work in agriculture?

Procedure

Instructions:Take a posterboard or large piece of construction paper and divide it into four sections. Label the sections picture, science, history, art. Assign group members different sections. You should answer each of the questions on your paper and then work together to put everything on your poster. Remember to use neat handwriting on the poster.
 

Assessment Materials

Rubric provided
 

Supports for Struggling Learners

Reduced questions. The most important questions are bolded so you can reduce focus for students at a lower level (middle school) or for shorter class periods. Adaptations are noted in the teacher instructions.

Contact Information

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