Lesson Plan - Can Our Crops Be Saved?

Learning Objective

Students will analyze how a historic drought has affected farmers in the Western U.S.

Text Structure

Description, Cause and Effect

Content-Area Connections

Earth Science

Standards Correlations

CCSS: RI.4.1, RI.4.2, RI.4.3, RI.4.4, RI.4.5, RI.4.6, RI.4.7, RI.4.8, RI.4.10, L.4.4, SL.4.1

NGSS: Earth and Human Activity

TEKS: Science 4.7

1. Preparing to Read

Watch a Video: Where’s the Water?
Discuss: Why do scientists call droughts the “creeping disaster”? How are they different from other natural disasters?

Where’s the Water?
Watch a video to learn more about droughts.

Preview Words to Know
Project the online vocabulary slideshow and introduce the Words to Know.

  • irrigation 
  • reservoirs


Set a Purpose for Reading
Note the “As You Read” question and have students think about how the drought might affect what people across the U.S. eat.

2. Close-Reading Questions

1. Why does the author include Joe Del Bosque’s personal story?
The author probably shares Del Bosque’s story to show how a real farmer has been hurt by the drought. Del Bosque had to leave a lot of land unplanted and lay off workers, which upset him.
(RI.4.1 MAKE INFERENCES)

2. How could the drought in California affect the entire country?
More than two-thirds of the nation’s fruits and nuts and one-third of its vegetables come from California. The drought limits what farmers can grow, so these foods may be in short supply.
(RI.4.5 CAUSE/EFFECT)

3. What are two facts you can learn from the “Water Works” diagram?
Sample response: You can learn that snow melting off a mountaintop is called runoff and that this water goes into reservoirs.
(RI.4.7 READING A DIAGRAM)

3. Skill Building

FEATURED SKILL: Analyzing Evidence
Use the skill builder “Dive Into Data” to introduce a strategy for analyzing statistics in articles.
(RI.4.1 TEXT EVIDENCE)

Text-to-Speech