How We Organize Ourselves

This unit allows scholars to explore human communities and environmental communities and consider the relationship between each and the responsibility each has to one another. Scholars will be able to evaluate changes to communities and the impact, both desired and undesired, these changes may have across communities. In The River Between Us, the main characters struggle to understand the consequences associated with the Civil War and effects of slavery that are embedded within traditions celebrated, revered, and in some instances, questioned. It is through the bonds characters have with each other and their shared land that divisions across race, gender, and class, diminish as the appreciation for human connection deepens across generations.

Eureka Module 4- Multiplication and Division of Fractions and Decimal Fractions

Near the end of Module 4 students know enough about fractions and whole number operations to begin to explore multi-digit decimal multiplication and division. In multiplying 2.1 × 3.8, for example, students now have multiple skills and strategies that they can use to locate the decimal point in the final answer, including:

• Unit awareness: 2.1 × 3.8 = 21 tenths × 38 tenths = 798 hundredths

• Estimation (through rounding): 2.1 × 3.8 ≈ 2 × 4 = 8, so 2.1 × 3.8 = 7.98

• Fraction multiplication: 21/10 × 38/10 = (21 × 38)/(10 × 10)

Similar strategies enrich students’ understanding of division and help them to see multi-digit decimal division as whole number division in a different unit. For example, we divide to find, “How many groups of 3 apples are there in 45 apples?” and write 45 apples ÷ 3 apples = 15. Similarly, 4.5 ÷ 0.3 can be written as “45 tenths ÷ 3 tenths” with the same answer: There are 15 groups of 0.3 in 4.5. This idea was used to introduce fraction division earlier in the module, thus gluing division to whole numbers, fractions and decimals together through an understanding of units.

Throughout this unit, scholars have been building background about slavery and the Civil War, in conjunction with their read aloud book. They dove into slavery, the causes of the civil war, specific battles and the reconstruction era. They will understand the influences and civil war on history today. They will use this knowledge to respond to literature throughout read aloud and close read.

In this unit, scholars will understand that our natural world has many components that are organized in specific ways. Scholars will explore interdependency, food webs, and environmental change and discuss the ways in which these lessons help us better understand how our ecosystems are organized. They will understand that there are nonliving and living components that consistently interact. They will show the flow of energy in a food web and be able to identify producers, consumers, and decomposers. They will analyze the effects of environmental changes and discover how we can make proactive choices.