Reaching Out to Our Community While Learning About Fire Safety
Carmel Elementary School

Overview

This is a character education lesson that has integrated art, language arts, and math skills. This lesson is student initiated and will involve parents and community members. Students will brainstorm how they can reach out to a local family that lost their belongings to a house fire. Students will learn how to organize a donations drive. They will make posters to advertise the needs of the family. They will create power points by groups to present on the morning news show “Town Hall” to announce the needs  of the family. The students will write a script to read on Town Hall. Students in fourth grade will also be responsible for collecting the donations. This will be a student-driven activity. In addition, students will learn how to practice fire safety in their own homes and develop a written plan for what to do in case their house catches fire. Finally, the students will design their safety plans by using geometric skills learned during their math classes. For background knowledge, this lesson should be taught at the end of the Geometry Unit. Students should understand the meaning of and how to draw points, lines, line segments, rays, angles (right, acute, obtuse), and perpendicular and parallel lines. Student should also know how to draw a lines of symmetry and be able to recognize two-dimensional figures in their everyday lives.

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Lesson Objectives

Students will: learn about caring and kindness by reaching out to members in the community who lost their belongings in a fire; learn about responsibility by working together as a group to organize a supply drive; improve communication skills by informing others about this tragedy through script writing and creating power points; incorporate art and writing by creating posters, power points, and writing scripts to be displayed and presented on the morning news show "Town Hall"; work together with members of the community to learn about fire safety; create a Fire Safety Plan for their family by utilizing real-life applications of geometry concepts; and write reflections as to the purpose of the activity and their feelings for completing the service project

Materials Needed

  • poster board
  • markers
  • graph paper
  • computer with power point program accessibility
  • journal for writing their fire safety plans and reflections

Procedures


  1. Students will brainstorm how to help a family in need, and discuss why it is important to help this family. Student leaders will focus the discussion on what this family needs and how we can help.
  2. Students will divide up the tasks of creating posters to display around the school, Power Points to show on the morning news on Town Hall, and scripts to read on the morning announcements in order to inform the rest of the school community about this tragedy.
  3. Students will learn about Fire Safety from a local Fire Department. The Fire Department representative will speak to the students and teach them about fire safety. Students will learn about having safety plans and how to practice fire safety in their homes.
  4. Students will draw a Fire Plan for their families in order to make connections of Geometry to real-life situations.
  5. Students will present their Fire Safety Plans and discuss the importance of having plans in case of a fire.
  6. In conclusion, students will have a discussion on how helping this family of the local community taught them responsibility, respect, caring, kindness, courage, safety, and good citizenship skills.
  7. Finally, students will write a reflection on this Learn and Serve project in their journals.

Assessment

The teacher will check for accuracy of the geometric concepts of the fire safety plans developed by the students. The teacher will check for students writing their reflections in the journals.