Powwows Lesson Plan: Human-Environment Interaction- Place, Regions, and Cultures
*Click to open and customize your own copy of the Powwows Lesson Plan.
This lesson accompanies the BrainPOP topic Powwows, and supports the standard of explaining how the physical and human characteristics of places and regions are connected to human identities and cultures. Students demonstrate understanding through a variety of projects.
Step 1: ACTIVATE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE
Display a video or an image of people taking part in a powwow, like this one:
Step 2: BUILD KNOWLEDGE
- Read the description on the Powwows topic page.
- Play the Movie, pausing to check for understanding.
Step 3: APPLY and ASSESS
Assign Powwows 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 powwows 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: Produce a documentary exploring the importance of dance in Native American cultures. In your documentary, cite specific examples to support your ideas.
- Make-a-Map: Create a concept map identifying different parts of a powwow, and describing the importance and symbolism of each.
- Creative Coding: Code a museum about the history of powwows, with artifacts representing ways that they have evolved and stayed the same over time.
More to Explore
Sortify: Native American History: Challenge players to sort by different attributes in this learning game.
Related BrainPOP Topics: Deepen understanding of Native American societies with these topics: Native American Traditions, Reservations, and Haudenosaunee Confederacy.
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.
