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5th, 6th Grades  Project 4 weeks

Seedfolks & Self: Growing our Community Identity

Michelle M
Updated
MS-ESS3-3
MS-ESS3-4
MS-ETS1-1
CCRA.SL.1
CCRA.SL.2
+ 19 more
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Purpose

Students investigate how identity, perspective, and environmental responsibility shape the way people respond to shared community problems. Through Seedfolks discussion circles, a local site study, simple environmental testing, and design work, they connect literary analysis with scientific problem-solving to plan realistic ways to reduce human impact on a school or neighborhood space. The project builds students’ ability to use evidence, listen across differences, revise ideas with feedback from peers and community partners, and communicate a solution that benefits both people and the environment.

Learning goals

Students will analyze how characters in Seedfolks use identity, perspective, and community experiences to respond to shared problems, and they will compare those viewpoints to multiple informational sources about human impact on local environments. Students will apply scientific principles and a clear design process to define a local environmental problem, test realistic solutions such as planting, recycling, shade, cleanup, or water-use reduction, and revise their ideas based on evidence, partner feedback, and site constraints. Students will strengthen discussion, writing, and presentation skills by citing text and media evidence, evaluating others’ reasoning, and explaining how their solution benefits both the environment and the community. Students will build collaboration, reflection, and self-direction by tracking weekly growth in their project maps, contributing to discussion circles, and using feedback to improve their work and confidence.

Standards
  • [California] MS-ESS3-3 - Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment.
  • [California] MS-ESS3-4 - Construct an argument supported by evidence for how increases in human population and per-capita consumption of natural resources impact Earth's systems.
  • [California] MS-ETS1-1 - Define the criteria and constraints of a design problem with sufficient precision to ensure a successful solution, taking into account relevant scientific principles and potential impacts on people and the natural environment that may limit possible solutions.
  • [California] CCRA.SL.1 - Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others' ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
  • [California] CCRA.SL.2 - Integrate and evaluate information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.
  • [California] CCRA.SL.3 - Evaluate a speaker's point of view, reasoning, and use of evidence and rhetoric.
  • [California] RI.5.6 - Analyze multiple accounts of the same event or topic, noting important similarities and differences in the point of view they represent.
  • [California] RL.5.6 - Describe how a narrator's or speaker's point of view influences how events are described.
  • [California] RI.5.3 - Explain the relationships or interactions between two or more individuals, events, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text based on specific information in the text.
  • [California] RL.5.3 - Compare and contrast two or more characters, settings, or events in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., how characters interact).
  • [California] CCRA.R.3 - Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas develop and interact over the course of a text.
  • [California] RI.6.6 - Determine an author's point of view or purpose in a text and explain how it is conveyed in the text.
  • [California] RL.6.6 - Explain how an author develops the point of view of the narrator or speaker in a text.
  • [California] RL.6.3 - Describe how a particular story's or drama's plot unfolds in a series of episodes as well as how the characters respond or change as the plot moves toward a resolution.
  • [California] RST.6-8.3 - Follow precisely a multistep procedure when carrying out experiments, taking measurements, or performing technical tasks.
  • [California] W.6.4 - Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.
  • [California] W.6.5 - With some guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach.
  • [California] CCRA.W.3 - Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.
Competencies
  • Critical Thinking & Problem Solving - Students consider a variety of innovative approaches to address and understand complex questions that are authentic and important to their communities.
  • Content Expertise - Students develop key competencies, skills, and dispositions with ample opportunities to apply knowledge and engage in work that matters to them.
  • Effective Communication - Students practice listening to understand, communicating with empathy, and share their learning through exhibiting, presenting and reflecting on their work.
  • Collaboration - Students co-design projects with peers, exercise shared-decision making, strengthen relational agency, resolve conflict, and assume leadership roles.
  • Self Directed Learning - Students use teacher and peer feedback and self-reflection to monitor and direct their own learning while building self knowledge both in and out of the classroom.
  • Academic Mindset - Students establish a sense of place, identity, and belonging to increase self-efficacy while engaging in critical reflection and action.

Products

Throughout the project, students create a project map with weekly evidence-based notes, social-emotional reflections, and one revised solution idea, plus annotated site sketches, data tables, and simple prototypes for reducing litter, heat, or water waste. They also produce Seedfolks response entries and discussion-circle audio reflections that connect character perspectives, identity, and community decision-making to their own design choices. By the end, teams present a student-made community change guide with maps, labeled photos, criteria and constraints, monitoring steps, and care directions for a school or neighborhood site. Students also share a narrated photo essay or audio slideshow comparing Seedfolks character viewpoints with their final environmental design at the Community Change Showcase.

Launch

Begin with a Before-and-After Vision Lab using photos and short video clips of littered, overheated, or water-wasted community spaces alongside restored gardens, shaded schoolyards, and clean creek areas. Students sort evidence of human impact, talk in pairs about which space feels welcoming or harmful and why, and connect their observations to early Seedfolks themes by discussing how one person’s action can change a shared place. Then take a brief campus or neighborhood observation walk with the custodian or a local partner to document real issues with photos, notes, and simple measurements, and end by building a class collage map of possible improvements they may investigate during the project.

Exhibition

Host a Community Change Showcase at the school or local site where teams lead small-group tours of their models, maps, labeled photos, and care guides for reducing litter, heat, or water waste. Students present a narrated photo essay or audio slideshow that connects Seedfolks character perspectives to their own design choices, then participate in a discussion circle with families, peers, and partners such as the custodian, watershed educator, parks staff member, garden partner, or I Love a Clean San Diego. Include a live feedback station where guests review feasibility, environmental impact, and maintenance needs, and students explain one revision they made each week using evidence from project maps and social-emotional reflections. End with a public listening gallery of student audio reflections about how identity, perspective, and teamwork shaped their scientific solutions for a shared community space.