Title, Learner Characteristics, and Sunshine State Standards Sample Component
PBL Lesson Plan for Diverse Learners
Teacher: Jodi Moore
Title: Smoke Signals: Teens and Cigarette Smoking
Primary Subject Area: Language Arts
Outside Subject Area: Health
Class and Level: Language Arts, Average Studies Class
Grade Level: 8th grade
Primary Sunshine State Standards from Language Arts:
LA. 8.1.7.3: The student will determine the main idea or essential message in grade-level or higher texts through inferring, paraphrasing, summarizing, and identifying relevant details.
LA 8.2.2.3: The student will organize information to show understanding or relationships among facts, ideas, and events (e.g., representing key points within a text through charting, mapping, paraphrasing, summarizing, or comparing/contrasting.)
Outside Subject Area Sunshine State Standards from Health:
HE.B.1.3.2: The student understands the short-term and long-term consequences of safe, risky, and harmful behavior.
HE.A.2.3.6: The student knows communication strategies for avoiding potentially harmful situations (e.g., refusal skills and resistance to peer pressure.)
Learner Characteristics of Middle Grades Students:
Physical: Physical growth tends to be both rapid and uneven.
Justification: Snowman and Biehler state that, for girls, the growth spurt “begins at about age ten and a half, reaches a peak at about age twelve, and is generally complete by age fourteen. The growth spurt for boys begins on average at about age twelve and a half, peaks at about age fourteen, and is generally complete by age sixteen.” (p.83) The differences in maturation rates are important because children who mature early are more likely to associate with older children and (especially boys) are “at greater risk for delinquency, drug and alcohol abuse, truancy, and increased sexual activity.” (p. 84) Boys and girls who physically mature early are more likely to begin smoking at an earlier age than those who mature later.
Social: The desire to conform reaches a peak during the middle school years.
Justification: Snowman and Biehler state that “early adolescents find it reassuring to dress and behave like others, and they are likely to alter their own opinions to coincide with those of a group.” (p.86) This implies that if children see their peers smoking, or if they see someone they admire smoking, they are more likely to try that behavior.
Emotional: The view of early adolescence as a period of “storm and stress” appears to be an exaggeration.
Justification: As described by Snowman and Biehler, adolescence has historically been considered a “period of turmoil. Feelings of confusion, anxiety, and depression; extreme mood swings; and low levels of self-confidence are felt to be typical of the age group.” (p.87) However, “current evidence suggests that although many adolescents have social and emotional problems from time to time and experiment with risky behavior, most do not develop significant social, emotional, or behavioral difficulties.” (p.87) Therefore, while teens may try smoking, most will not continue to smoke. It is important to educate the children who do choose to continue smoking about cigarettes.
Emotional: As a result of the continued influence of egocentric thought, middle school students are typically self-conscious and self-centered.
Justification: As stated by Snowman and Biehler, “emerging adolescents are acutely aware of the physical and emotional changes that are taking place within them, and they assume that everyone else is just as interested in, and is constantly evaluating, their appearance, feelings, and behavior.” (p.87) This state of mind makes it more likely that teens will begin smoking if someone they love or idolizes also smokes; they want to be seen as “cool,” and will engage in risky behavior if necessary in order to achieve the desired effect.
Cognitive: Because of the psychological demands of early adolescence, middle school students need a classroom environment that is open, supportive, and intellectually stimulating.
Justification: Snowman and Biehler state that “early adolescence is an unsettling time for students because of changes in their physical development, social roles, cognitive development, and sexuality.” (p.87) Students at this stage of life are more likely to engage in risky behavior. It is important for a classroom teacher to provide information about issues faced by teens, such as smoking, drinking, and drugs. Students can make more appropriate choices about these issues if they are educated about all the pros and cons of the behavior. It is also important for teachers to maintain open lines of communication and to answer students’ questions appropriately and accurately.
Learning Outcomes, Student Role and Problem Situation, Meet the Problem Method
Sample Components
PBL Lesson Plan for Diverse Learners
Original Title: Smoke Signals: Teens and Cigarette Smoking
Teacher: Jodi Moore
Primary Sunshine State Standards with Learning Outcomes:
LA 8.1.7.3: The student will determine the main idea or essential message in grade-level or higher texts through inferring, paraphrasing, summarizing, and identifying relevant details.
LO#1: After instruction regarding how to infer meaning, paraphrase, summarize, and identify relevant details in text, students will read the Meet the Problem document individually. The students will then break into groups of no more than five and, given 15 minutes of discussion time, the students will be able to correctly verbally infer and state the main idea of the given text. (Synthesis)
LA 8.2.2.3: The student will organize information to show understanding or relationships among facts, ideas, and events (e.g., representing key points within a text through charting, mapping, paraphrasing, summarizing, or comparing/contrasting.)
LO#2: After reading the internet article, “Information About Smoking: A Guide for Teens,” students in groups of no more than five will correctly create an accurate Know/Need to Know list with at least five items in each category about what they have learned about smoking from the article and what questions they have about smoking which they feel were not answered by the article. (Synthesis)
Outside Subject Area Sunshine State Standards from Language Arts with Learning Outcomes:
HE.B.1.3.2: The student understands the short-term and long-term consequences of safe, risky, and harmful behavior.
LO#3: After reading and analyzing the article, “Information About Smoking: A Guide for Teens,” individual students will correctly create two lists. One list will be titled, “Short-term effects” and the other will be titled “Long-term effects.” Each list will relate to the effects of smoking and teen use. The students will then break into groups of no more than five and will be given a period of 15 minutes to compare lists. After the discussion period, the groups of students will verbally and correctly present their findings to the class as a whole. The lists written by each student will then be turned in to the teacher for in-class work credit. (Analysis, Synthesis.)
HE.A.2.3.6: The student knows communication strategies for avoiding potentially harmful situations (e.g., refusal skills and resistance to peer pressure.)
LO#4: After reading the article about teen smoking, students in the class will divide into pairs. One student in each pair will correctly pretend to be a teen trying to convince the other to smoke; the other student in each pair will correctly defend his or her reasons for not smoking and try to convince the other student to quit smoking. Each pair of students in the class will have 5 minutes to role-play in front of the class as a whole. The students will be allowed to use the article on smoking as a guide when making their points. (Evaluation)
Description of Student Roles and Problem Situation:
Students are employees of a fictitious health insurance company working on a project assigned to them by the company; the aim of the project is to figure out why teens start smoking and what can be done to prevent teenagers from beginning to smoke. The goal of the health insurance company is to ultimately reduce the numbers of total smokers, and thereby reduce the health-related costs incurred by the company as a result of smoking. After the team has researched the subject thoroughly, the plan is to take the information into the community in order to educate teens about smoking. The team leader, Cathy Winston, has researched this issue online and has found a relevant article which she wishes to have read by the group before the next meeting. Cathy e-mails the article and a memo to each team member.
Meet the Problem Documents:
(e-mail)
To All “Teen Smoking” Project Members:
June 1, 2008, 9:33 a.m.:
Hi, good morning, everyone. I was researching online and I found this article. I would like for everyone to please read it before our 1 p.m. meeting this afternoon. It has some great information we can use for our project. The article lists some of the health problems smokers encounter, as well as social reasons why teens should not smoke (the article lists bad breath, for example.) The article also talks about some reasons why teenagers begin smoking (advertising by tobacco companies and a belief that they can lose weight are some of the reasons given.) The article will be a great start to our discussion of this topic. I’d like for each of you to do your own research before Friday, and bring in your articles or research documents to Friday’s 1 p.m. meeting.
Thanks for all of your hard work! I will see each of you at the 1 p.m. meeting this afternoon.
Sincerely,
Cathy Winston, Teen Smoking Project Leader
See Attached:
Information About Smoking:
A Guide for Teens
Do you smoke? Have you ever stopped to think about how smoking is affecting your body and your life? Most teens are aware that people who have smoked for awhile can get lung cancer and emphysema and eventually die, but many don't know about all of the bad things that smoking can to them right now. If you smoke, you owe it to yourself to find out about the effects of smoking on your life now. This guide provides some information about what smoking is doing to your body and some of the common reasons why people keep smoking even though they know it's bad for them. These are important things to think about to help you decide if you should continue smoking.
Why is cigarette smoking bad for me?
Everyone knows that smoking can cause cancer when you get older, but did you know that it also has bad effects on your body right now? A cigarette contains about 4000 chemicals, many of which are poisonous. Some of the worst ones are:
· Nicotine: a deadly poison
· Arsenic: used in rat poison
· Methane: a component of rocket fuel
· Ammonia: found in floor cleaner
· Cadmium: used in batteries
· Carbon Monoxide: part of car exhaust
· Formaldehyde: used to preserve body tissue
· Butane: lighter fluid
· Hydrogen Cyanide: the poison used in gas chambers
Every time you inhale smoke from a cigarette, small amounts of these chemicals get into your blood through your lungs. They travel to all the parts of your body and cause harm.
What do all these chemicals do to my body?
As you might imagine, even small amounts of the poisonous chemicals in cigarettes can do bad things to your body. Here are some facts about what smoking cigarettes does to you:
· Smoking makes you smell bad, gives you wrinkles, stains your teeth, and gives you bad breath.
· Smokers get 3 times more cavities than non-smokers.
· Smoking lowers your hormone levels.
· When smokers catch a cold, they are more likely than non-smokers to have a cough that lasts a long time. They are also more likely than non-smokers to get bronchitis and pneumonia.
· Teen smokers have smaller lungs and a weaker heart than teen non-smokers. They also get sick more often than teens who don't smoke.
What happens to my lungs when I smoke?
Every time you inhale smoke from a cigarette, you kill some of the air sacks in your lungs, called alveoli. These air sacks are where the oxygen that you breathe in is transferred into your blood. Alveoli don't grow back, so when you destroy them, you have permanently destroyed part of your lungs. This means that you won't do as well in activities where breathing is important, like sports, dancing, or singing.
Smoking paralyzes the cilia that line your lungs. Cilia are little hairlike structures that move back and forth to sweep particles out of your lungs. When you smoke, the cilia can't move and can't do their job. So dust, pollen, and other things that you inhale sit in your lungs and build up. Also, there are a lot of particles in smoke that get into your lungs. Since your cilia are paralyzed because of the smoke and can't clean them out, the particles sit in your lungs and form tar.
I know smoking is bad for me, but I really like it.
Many teens like the feeling that smoking gives them. This good feeling is from the nicotine in the cigarettes. Some teens think smoking will help them lose weight or stay thin. Many teens also feel like smoking gives them a sense of freedom and independence, and some smoke to feel more comfortable in social situations. If this sounds like you, you should stop and think about whether the things you like about smoking are really worth the risks.
· Nicotine can make you feel good, but is feeling good (a feeling you can also get from healthy activities like playing sports) really worth all the bad things cigarettes do to you? If you smoke, you'll get sick more often. You also have the chance of getting lung cancer or emphysema, which will make you really sick for a long time before you die. If you are very sick, that good feeling from nicotine won't seem so important anymore.
· Smoking doesn't really help people lose weight. If that were true, every smoker would be thin.
· Smoking lowers your hormone levels.
Do you think that smoking is a sign that you can do what you want? That you are in control of your life?
Think about it this way: When you decide to start smoking, you are doing exactly what tobacco companies want you to do. They spend millions of dollars every year on advertising to try to get new people, especially teens, to smoke. Once they have you hooked, THEY are controlling YOU. You are forced to buy their products in order to support your addiction. Do you really want a big corporation controlling your life and telling you how to spend your money?