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Inquiries Filed Under:

Geography, Humans, and Environment

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About the inquiry

This inquiry explores how communities develop and sustain themselves by examining the positive and negative impacts of development on community environments. In considering the idea that communities grow and change over time, students develop an argument with evidence that answers the compelling question “How do we shape our environment?”

Compelling Question

How Do We Shape Our Environment?

Staging Question

Watch a time-lapse video of a city being built and discuss what is changing and why.

1
Supporting Question

How do we modify our environment over time?

Formative Tasks

Complete a graphic organizer demonstrating how people have modified the environment of a location in New York State.

Sources

Source A: Image bank: New York City in 1609 versus 2009

2
Supporting Question

How do we use land in different ways to shape our community?

Formative Tasks

Create a community map classifying land as residential, industrial, commercial, or recreational.

Sources

Source A: Image bank: Various uses of land
Source B: Google Maps

3
Supporting Question

How does our use of land improve or harm our community?

Formative Tasks

Complete a T-chart demonstrating the pros and cons of building the Tappan Zee Bridge.

Sources

Source A: Image bank: Historic and current images of the Tappan Zee Bridge
Source B: Tappan Zee Bridge: Life in Rockland before the Span

4
Supporting Question

Research Opportunity: How has a local development improved or harmed our community?

Formative Tasks

Create a group pictorial essay demonstrating how a local development has helped or harmed the community, and invite local officials to class.

Sources

Source A: Teacher- and student-generated sources on a local community-development project

Summative Performance Task

Argument: How do we shape our environment? Construct an argument supported by evidence that addresses how we shape our environment and/or are shaped by our environment.

Extension:

Taking Informed Action

Understand: Accomplished through Performance Tasks 1 and 2

Assess: Accomplished through Performance Task 3

Act: Accomplished through Performance Task 4