Powering Our Future: Energy (2020)

Students explore how energy is transferred and how it can be converted into different forms, and learn about renewable and nonrenewable energy while looking towards the world’s energy future.

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ELA

Unit 4

4th Grade

This unit has been archived. To view our updated curriculum, visit our 4th Grade English Language Arts course.

Unit Summary


In this science-based unit, students explore the world of energy. In the first half of the unit, students learn what energy is, the different ways that energy is transferred from place to place, and the ways energy can be converted from one type to another. In the second half of the unit students explore the pros and cons of different types of renewable and nonrenewable energy sources. After learning about the different types of energy sources, students will propose the addition of a new source of energy to help provide electricity in their community. Through a combination of reading and research, it is our hope that students begin to build a deeper understanding of energy and its influence on our lives.

This unit builds on the informational reading skills and strategies developed in previous units. The focus of this unit is on refining students’ ability to use different strategies to comprehend denser scientific texts. In particular, students will continue working on identifying and explaining cause and effect and sequential relationships in texts.  Students will also notice how authors use a variety of evidence and reasons to support particular points and ideas in a text. When discussing the text, students continue to work on engaging with the thinking of others by building on, paraphrasing ideas in order to understand, and questioning and clarifying. At this point in the sequence, students should be able to write fluently in response to the daily Target Tasks to show understanding of the text. In this unit students return to working on writing strong opinion paragraphs, building on work done in previous units on topic sentences, supporting details, and strategies for elaboration. The unit ends by having students write an opinion piece trying to convince community leaders to use a particular source of energy. 

Please Note: In October 2023, we released an updated version of this unit that replaces the supporting materials from Science A-Z with Renewable Energy: Discover the Fuel of the Future with 20 Projects (ISBN: 978-1619303607) for Lessons 7-11.

This text has since been re-released in a new edition (ISBN: 978-1647411169) with significant enough differences that it cannot be used with these updated lesson plans. 

As a result, we moved this unit into the archives in July 2024. If you own the ISBN: 978-1619303607 text, you can continue to use the unit from the archives.

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Texts and Materials


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Core Materials

Supporting Materials

Assessment


These assessments accompany this unit to help gauge student understanding of key unit content and skills.

Unit Prep


Intellectual Prep

Unit Launch

Before you teach this unit, unpack the texts, themes, and core standards through our guided intellectual preparation process. Each Unit Launch includes a series of short videos, targeted readings, and opportunities for action planning to ensure you're prepared to support every student.

Essential Questions

  • What is energy? What are the different forms of energy? 
  • What are nonrenewable energy resources? What are the pros and cons of using nonrenewable energy? 
  • What are renewable energy sources? What are the pros and cons of using renewable energy? 

Reading Focus Areas

  • To describe scientific concepts and ideas, readers need to be able to identify and describe sequential and cause-and-effect relationships.

  • Authors use a variety of evidence and reasons to support particular points and ideas in a text.

Writing Focus Areas

Opinion Writing

  • Write strong topic sentences that clearly state an opinion.

  • Provide reasons and evidence to support a particular opinion.

  • Elaborate on the reasons to show understanding of the text and topic.

  • Link opinions and reasons using words and phrases.

Speaking and Listening Focus Areas

  • Build on to partner's ideas. Seek to genuinely understand what peers are saying, and then build on.

  • Paraphrase to make meaning. Paraphrase what others are saying in order to keep track of key ideas in a discussion.

  • Question and clarify. Seek to clarify a particular point a peer makes by asking follow-up questions.

Vocabulary

Text-based

battery calorie charge chemical energy conduct dam electricity energy fossil fuels greenhouse gases heat radiation kinetic energy matter nonrenewable photosynthesis photon potential energy pollution recommend renewable solar cell thermal energy wind turbine

Root/Affix

non-

To see all the vocabulary for Unit 4, view our 4th Grade Vocabulary Glossary.

Supporting All Students

In order to ensure that all students are able to access the texts and tasks in this unit, it is incredibly important to intellectually prepare to teach the unit prior to launching the unit. Use the intellectual preparation protocol and the Unit Launch to determine which support students will need. To learn more, visit the Supporting all Students teacher tool.

Lesson Map


Common Core Standards


Core Standards

4-PS3-1
4-PS3-2
4-PS3-3
4-PS3-4
4-PS4-1
RI.4.2
RI.4.3
RI.4.7
RI.4.8
SL.4.1
SL.4.2
SL.4.3
SL.4.4
SL.4.5
SL.4.6
W.4.1
W.4.1.a
W.4.1.b
W.4.1.c
W.4.2
W.4.8
W.4.9

Supporting Standards

L.4.1
L.4.1.c
L.4.2
L.4.4
L.4.4.b
L.4.6
RF.4.3
RF.4.4
RI.4.1
RI.4.4
RI.4.5
RI.4.6
RI.4.9
RI.4.10
W.4.4
W.4.5
W.4.6
W.4.10
W.4.10

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