Traveling the World

Name: Mary Sramek

Grade Level: 6th grade
Materials Required:
Bell Work
Migration KWL chart and rubric
Footprints

Time Allotted: 45 minutes

Subject(s): Social Studies

Green Paper
Blue Paper
Statistical Question Data/Alterations

Michigan Content Expectations:

6 W1.1.1
Describe the early migrations of people among Earths continents (including the Berringa Land Bridge).

Objective(s):
Objective 1: The students will describe the early migrations of people among the Earths continents so that
they are able to list or illustrate on their Migration KWL charts at least 3 reasons why the early people
migrated.

Assessment:
Objective 1 Pre-Assessment:
The students will fill out a true/false bell work activity to see if they can determine if someone has a good
reason for migrating.
Objective 1 Informal Formative Assessment:
The students will engage in conversation about the game that played and the teacher will listen to the
conversations about migration and why they moved forward in the game.

The teacher will also listen to conversation about the pre-assessment to determine how much the students may
or may not already know about human migration.
Objective 1 Formal Formative Assessment:
The teacher will have the students fill out more questions that they have about migration on the KWL chart.
This will measure what the students think they have learned and the teacher will then have a discussion with
the students about what they do know and what the students want to know.
Objective 1 Formal Interim Assessment:
The students will write on the KWL chart what they learned about migration. At the bottom of the KWL chart
the students will use the box to reflect the information that they were given.

Data & Intervention:

Stu
dent
Na
me:

Stu
dent
A
Stu
dent
B
Stu
dent
C

The student has 3

complete and new
facts about
migration added to
their KWL chart.
3/3

The student only

has 2 complete and
new facts on their
KWL chart.
2/3

The student
has one or
fewer
complete
facts on their
KWL chart.
1/3

By the end of the lesson:

Students who achieve 3/3 will be given reading that involves connecting DNA and the migration from Africa
(The Human Journey: Migration Routes, 2015). This website and interactive article discusses how scientists
track the movements and how people lived when they moved. Students will note information that connects to
migration and how scientists have tracked it and add it (with a different color) to their KWL chart.
Students who achieve 2/3 will be considered proficient enough to comfortably continue onto the next lesson
regarding migration.
Students who achieve 0-1/3 will have supplemental reading in migration from National Geographic that
shows and explains migrations with words and an interactive map. The students will also have a conversation
with the teacher about the migration that can be seen on the map as well as the patterns of migration hat they
can see with the animals that do leave. The teacher will as questions about where animals go and why and
then be asked questions about why they think that people may want to leave where they are leaving. What
happens when you feel threatened? What do you do when you are hungry? What do you think you would do if
your refrigerator was moved from the kitchen to the living room; would you keep looking for food in the
kitchen?

Instructional Procedure:
Anticipatory Set: (2 minutes)
a. The students will have Bell Work (Wong, 2009) that is a true/false sheet. This gives a scenario and
the students will write true if the person was given a good reason to migrate and false if the person
was not given a good reason to migrate. This is not graded but is collected by the teacher to see where
the student was before the lesson began.

State Purpose and Objective of Lesson: (2 minutes)

a. The teacher will tell the students that the class will be discussing migration and the patterns of people.
This lesson is an introduction and we will go further into different peoples and how they lived, where
they came from and when.
i. We will describe the early migrations of people among the Earths continents.

b. The teacher will explain to the students that all humans came from the same general area. This is
important because we can discuss where we came from and think about where we are going or even
how we got where we are.
c. Migration is still happening today. We can begin to understand why people move from an
anthropological standpoint. This means that we are studying human diversity as a whole and maybe
predict future movements, but also understand why people today are still migrating from one place to
another.

Instruction:
a. Direct Instruction: (25 minutes)
i. The students and teacher will go over the bell work before the lesson starts. The teacher will
not tell whether each statement is true or false but will let the students lead a discussion with
one another about the different parts of the questions and why one of the statements were true
or false.
1. The students will be encouraged to challenge answers that are different from theirs so
that they are able to think about all of the perspectives and thoughts about what is an
acceptable reason to migrate.
ii. The students will then fill out the What I know portion of the KWL chart and decide what
they think they know about migration. The students will be encouraged to have at least 3 items
in their what I know column.
1. If struggling, the students will be reminded that sometimes Animals migrate and that
they can use that as part of the What I know column.
iii. The teacher and the students will discuss what everyone knows about migration and fill out a
large class KWL chart. Students will be allowed to come up and write what they knew on the
boards chart.
iv. When the class is finished with discussion about what they know, each student will write two
questions inquiring about migration.
a. The students will be reminded that we learned how to ask a good question in
Math. Though this doesnt have to be a statistical question, it should be thought
provoking and be something that we would be interested in exploring.
I.E:
i. Why did people move?
ii. Where did they go?
iii. What happened when their food was gone?
v. The students will also share what they want to know about migration and the class will choose
three questions from the class to put on the class KWL chart.
vi. The teacher will divide the students into two groups (people and livestock).
1. The students will be participating in a Migrating Game where they are either the
animals or the people. The animals will be told when to move and so will the people
(see Migration Game sheet). The game will be set up as two landmasses that are
green. The landmasses should be separated by blue paper that is meant to show that
there is water.
2. The students will finish the game and come together to discuss what happened when
the animals moved, why the people moved, where they maybe moved to, and how they
moved. This game is an introduction to the concepts of the expansion of the Western
Hemisphere. (KINESTHETIC ACTIVITY/ROLE PLAYINGHIGH YIELD
STRATEGY)
vii. When the students are finished with the game and return to the classroom they will be asked to
discuss the game with their group. They must come up with ONE very important point (VIP)
from the lesson as a group. The class will then come together and discuss what they think was
happening and share their VIPs.(VIPAVID summaries) The students will be asked to use

situations in the game as citations in conversations. This means that they will use the
information from the game as examples to support their discussion and arguments.
1. The students should recognize that war, weather, natural disasters, and need of food
could impact the migration of people, just like it does the migration of animals.

b. Modeling and Guided Practice: 8 minutes

i. The teacher will use the conversation from the game to lead the students into explaining the
ii. The teacher will use the information that they class gathered and use a scenario to change the
data of the class project example.
1. When your population reached Europe and met resistance with another population there
was fighting and your people won, but you took some casualties and lost 30 men, 15
women, and 2 children. Adjust all charts as much as possible.
c. Independent Practice: 8 minutes
The students will be asked to use their KWL charts and fill in what they have learned about
migration. They will be asked to date their entry because this chart will be used throughout all
the lessons on migration to track what they have learned and what lesson they learned the
information in.
When the students are finished their KWL chart/before the students leave the teacher will also
give the students one of the three scenarios for their projects. The students will use the scenario
given to generate one more piece of data for their histograms.
o You find out another people group started following the same herd as you. The food
supply not only dwindled, but also war broke out. While there were 3 babies born that
year 25 men did die in the war and 10 women died from starvation.
o Your people have followed your food north and the animals have settled. After a few
months you realize that the weather is warmer and the animals will not be moving
again for a while. You build some homes and settle near some fresh water for a few
years. Over this time, your population grows: 4 boys become men, 7 girls become
women and get marries. Within the first year 13 babies were born. Adjust your data
accordingly using a different color than the first time.
o There have been some natural disasters and within the year you did lose about 6 men
and 7 women. Good news though, you found another group of people who are friendly.
There was an agreement and they let some of your women marry their men. This means
that 15 men were added to your population and you have an ally.
Numbers can be adjusted to fit a students data. If they only have 10 men 15
cannot die!

Differentiated Consideration
The students who are finished with their KWL charts early will be given the opportunity to explore the
National Geographic website (OConnor, 2012) where the animation about the migration is shown. They
can click on any links on that page and explore the migration information the National Geographic gives
the students. To hold them accountable, the students will add (in another color pencil or pen) what
information that they learned from the National Geographic page about migration locations, patterns, and
reasons. (READING AND SUMMARIZING INFORMATIONAVID)
The students who are struggling with why people would migrate will also have a conversation with the
teacher about the migration that can be seen on the map as well as the patterns of migration hat they can
see with the animals that do leave. The teacher will as questions about where animals go and why and then
be asked questions about why they think that people may want to leave where they are leaving. What
happens when you feel threatened? What do you do when you are hungry? What do you think you would
do if your refrigerator moved from the kitchen to the living room; would you keep looking for food in the
kitchen? If your house set on fire would you still live in the foundation or would you find a new place to
live?

If students are struggling with generating their data for the project they can use the teachers data as a
reference.

Closure: (Allotted Time 3 minutes)

a. When the students are finished with their KWL charts they may discuss their information with their
classmates. If they want to add something to their KWL charts they may, but it must be indicated that
they added it.
b. The students will write on the back of the KWL chart a 3-2-1. They will write 3 things they learned, 2
things that intrigued them, and 1 thing they could share with someone at home or at lunch. (3-2-1
AVID)

References:
Footprints. (2014). http://www.clipartbest.com/printable-footprints.
The Human Journey: Migration Routes. (2015). https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/human-journey/.
OConnor, S. (2012). Global Human Journey.
http://education.nationalgeographic.com/education/media/global- human-journey/?ar_a=1.

Wong, H., & Wong, R. (2009). The First Days of School: How to Be an Effective Teacher (Second ed).

Teacher Made Statistics and Graphs:

Total Number of Men Each Year

Total Population Each Year

Number of Deaths

Babies Born Each Year

Year
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

Total
Population
176
185
169
135
146
157
159
168
171
167

Total
Number
of Men
100
105
99
60
75
76
74
80
82
90

Babie
s
Born
15
9
10
2
5
7
11
15
9
10

Number
of
Deaths
3
7
8
41
5
4
3
7
4
2


Name: ________________
Migration Nations: Bell Work

These are good reasons to migrateTrue or False?

______ My name is Anita. I was born in Africa and my family travels with each other. When we move we
are following a herd of livestock so we can use their food.

______ Hello! My name is Nikko. My family was bored and I didnt have any more games to play.

______ My name is Sam. My father is a chief and his enemy from the south has attacked us. We will move
north tomorrow.

______ My name is Cameron. It is so cold and the animals I eat have left. We are going to follow them
north.

______ Today there was a fire in my forest. I have to move to the south now!


Migration Game: You are all migrant natives of Africa. When the reader gives instructions, your group will move forward as instructed. The
green paper is land and the blue paper is water.

The livestock runs out

of food and moves
forward three steps and
leaves the people
behind. (1)
The weather warmed
back up. Both the
livestock and the people
move BACK four
spaces back to where
they were before. (4)

You strike land!

Please exit the
water and travel
three steps inland.
(7)

The people follow the

livestock and move
forward two spaces.
(2)
Other natives have
found your positions
and have killed all the
livestock. All animals
die and people move
forward three spaces.
(5)
You have found some
new friends who
traveled ahead of you.
Take two more steps in
and learn how to farm
on the new land! (8)

The ice age hit and the

weather is really cold
both the livestock and the
people move forward four
spaces. (3)
The other natives have
followed you to the
African borders. You
cannot escape unless you
take a ship across the sea
to Asia. Take three steps
into the sea. (6)
YOU FOUND MORE
LIVESTOCK!! The
weather is temperate and
you have settled where
you are. Please find
materials to build huts and
livestock move forward to
the grass that was found.
(9)

Name:

What Do I Know?

What Do I Want To
Know?

What Did I
Learn?

Was there anything that surprised you? Were any of your questions answered? Was anything that you
knew disproved?

__________________________
Migration
KWL rubric

Student
Name:

Student
A

Student
B

Student
C

The student has 3

complete and new
facts about
migration added to
their KWL chart.
3/3

The student only

has 2 complete and
new facts on their
KWL chart.
2/3

The student has

one or fewer
complete facts
on their KWL
chart.
1/3

KWL

 Footprints

(Footprints,
2014).

We will describe the

early migrations of
people among the
Earths continents.

We will illustrate the

direction of the
migration routes of
people among
Earths continents.