Humans and the Environment Lesson Plan: Earth and Human Activity 

*Click to open and customize your own copy of the Humans and the Environment Lesson Plan. 

This lesson accompanies the BrainPOP topic Humans and the Environment, and supports the standard of constructing an argument for how human activity impacts Earth’s systems. Students demonstrate understanding through a variety of projects.

Step 1: ACTIVATE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

Ask students: 

• Where do you see human impact on the environment in your community? 
• What are some ways you can personally help protect the environment?

Step 2: BUILD BACKGROUND

• Read aloud the description on the Humans and the Environment topic page. 
• Play the Movie, pausing to check for understanding. 
• Assign Related Reading. Have students read one of the articles. Partner them with someone who read a different article to share what they learned with each other.

Step 3: APPLY and ASSESS 

Assign the Humans and the Environment Quiz, prompting students to apply essential literacy skills while demonstrating what they learned about this topic.

Step 4: DEEPEN and EXTEND

Students express what they learned about humans and the environment while practicing essential literacy skills with one or more of the following activities. Differentiate by assigning ones that meet individual student needs.

• Make-a-Movie: Make a PSA that answers the question: How can people help protect Earth?   
• Make-a-Map: Make a concept map identifying ways people can conserve, clean up, and chime in to reduce our impact on the environment.  
• Creative Coding: Code a learning game challenging players to sort natural resources as renewable or nonrenewable.  

More to Explore

Lakeland: Students balance the use of resources for business and food in this simulation game.

Climate Change Unit: Continue to build understanding around human impact on the environment with more BrainPOP topics 

Teacher Support Resources:

• Pause Point Overview: Video tutorial showing how Pause Points actively engage students to stop, think, and express ideas. 
• Learning Activities Modifications: Strategies to meet ELL and other instructional and student needs.
• Learning Activities Support: Resources for best practices using BrainPOP.