The students will watch videos connecting to past natural disaster events in Oregon to see the different phenomena that occurred during these disasters.

YouTube Videos:

• Strong winds topple trees, power lines in Oregon
• Lightening Strikes Tree – It Instantly Catches Fire!
• ‘Like a War Zone’: Heavy Ice Storm Ravages Oregon Neighborhood
• Raw video: See fire break out when tree, power lines collide in Portsmouth

Learning Goals

1. Students will understand how natural disasters can create safety hazards in communities, with particulular attention to fallen trees and power lines.
2. Students will learn how porperties of mater, especially electrical conductivity, explain the dangers associated with damaged power lines.
3. Students will develop the ability to form a clear opinion about a real-world safety issue, supported by relevant facts, details and scientific understanding.
4. Students will learn to organize and communicate persuasive writing logically, connecting opinions to reasons and evidence and concluding with a clear statement.

Next Generation Science Standards

• 5.PS1.3 Make observations and measurements to identify materials based on their properties.

In this lesson, students will complete an activity to observe conductivity of items placed in a simple circuit. Students will engage with this hands-on activity and take notes and brainstorm their thoughts on conductivity with the intention of creating a persuasive writing. The concept of persausive writing, and what it is will be introduced in this lesson.This language arts lesson will build off of electrical conductivity concepts taught separately in science.

Using the phenomenon of natural disasters in Oregon and how they affect power lines, students will use their exisiting knowledge on conductivity and electricity to write an introduction to a persuasive writing.

Students will learn about writing fact backed reasons when writing to persuade the reader to be safe around storm damaged power lines. This language arts lesson builds on the previous lessons in this unit and corresponding electrical conductivity lessons in science.

Students will recieve feedback on their persuasive reasons for avoiding power lines affected by natural disasters from the previous lesson. They will then finish their persuasive writing draft with a conclusion that connects the students’ reasons and makes sense.

In this lesson, students will review their drafts and refine them into a final copy. Students will present their persuasive writing on avoiding storm damaged power lines with the class.