This quick activity will get students thinking about the assets in their communities and what they can do to help the people, animals, and environment around them.
Teaching Tips
Positives
This activity is a great way to get students thinking about their community and what they can do to improve it.
This activity can be scaled up into a large project, or it can be used as a quick brainstorming activity.
The resource provides links to extension activities, such as a guide for putting the plan into action and instructions for making a community map.
Additional Prerequisites
Students should be able to distinguish between human, animal, and environmental assets (a list is included on the worksheet).
The printable PDF mind map is titled "Printable Activity Guide" and is linked under the list of Compassionate Traits Practiced.
Differentiation
Cross-curricular connections could be made in language arts classes while reading or writing about the environment or community.
This activity would be a great way for older students to start a lesson or unit.
Teachers with younger students could use the activity to assess learning at the end of a lesson or unit.
To extend this activity, consider having your class create a giant mind map with poster paper and art supplies to display.
Scientist Notes
This resource is effective to guide students to mind map critical assets that can be beneficial to humans, animals, and the environment and how they can be protected. This is recommended for teaching.
Standards
Science
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
K.ESS3.3 Communicate solutions that will reduce the impact of humans on the land, water, air, and/or other living things in the local environment.
4.ESS3.2 Generate and compare multiple solutions to reduce the impacts of natural Earth processes on humans.
6.ESS3.3 Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment.
Social Sciences
Geography (K-12)
6.14 Identify and describe how the physical and human characteristics of places and regions connect to human identities and cultures in the Western Hemisphere.
Social Science Analysis (K-12)
4.24 Explain individual and cooperative approaches people have taken, or could take in the future, to address local, regional, and global problems as well as predict possible results of those actions.
6.27 Assess individual and collective capacities to take action to address local and regional issues, taking into account a range of possible levers of power, strategies, and potential outcomes.
