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Lesson Plan 10: So Many People, So Little Space

Alex Johnson-Jimenez
5th-6th Grade Classroom

Objective:
Students will practice critical thinking skills as they evaluate which individuals from Earth they believe should be among the first colonists on Mars. Students will also practice interviewing skills through role playing.

Materials Needed:
Sample job applications from a local business
Interview Questions handout

Estimated Time: 60 min.

Motivation:
Inform the students that they are going to be applying for a job at Sam's Club or some local business and that they must answer the application as thoroughly as possible. Total time: 6 min.

Procedure:
1.When students are finished with the applications, pick them up and stack them in a pile at the front of the room. Inform the students that you are acting as the manager of the business and will be holding interviews to see who are the right people for the job. Make sure to state that there are only 6 positions available and since you want only the best, you will interview as many people as possible.

2.Hand out the interview worksheet which asks the students to pay close attention and document questions that they believe the interviewer asks that are important.

3.Pick a student's application at random and ask the student to come to the front of the room.

4.Have the student sit across from you and begin asking questions from the application such as verification of their name, name of past employers, and when they are available for work. Move to more abstract questions such as why should we hire you, what are your strengths and weaknesses, what skills do you bring to our company that others may not have.

5.Interview about 3 students to show as an example.
Total time: 10 min.

6.Ask the students, "why are interviews so important?" Discuss their answers. Next ask, "what are some of the questions that I asked that were not on the application and why did I ask them?" Discuss that those questions give the interviewer more information about the applicant than the application can give.

7.Hand out a list of 4 questions:
A. What is your favorite color and why?
B. Who do you think is a positive role model and why?
C. If you could have anything in the world, what would it be?
D. What do you want to be when you grow up and why?
Inform students that they are going to practice interviewing people by interviewing their classmates. Students will be paired off as best as possible. Each student will get five minutes to be the interviewer and ask the questions-students should write down the answers to the questions. Switch roles when the timer goes off. Total time: 10 min.

8.When everyone has had a chance to role play both parts, ask if anyone discovered something new or different about their partners. Take the time to listen without judging. Inform students that interviews are a very important way of finding out information about others. Ask, "Since we want our first colony on Mars to be successful, we should probably try and find the most qualified people to Mars. How are we going to do this?" Take responses. They'll catch on to doing interviews. "Before we can interview people we need to make a list of things we want to know about, so take 5 minutes and come up with as many questions as you can about what you want to find out about a person that would make them a great candidate for being one of the first colonists on Mars." Total time: 5 min.

9.After the timer sounds, have students report their questions as the teacher writes them on the board. Evaluate the appropriateness of the questions with the students before writing them on the board. Have students take out a clean sheet of paper and copy the questions down. Total time: 10 min.

10.Inform them that their only homework for tonight is to interview the adults within their home or older siblings and have the student determine if those interviewed would be good candidates.

11.Also inform them that tomorrow the class will have guest speakers that want to apply for the position of being the first colonists on Mars.

12.Give the students the rest of the period to work on their final projects or finish copying the list on the board. Make sure that the teacher also has a copy of the list of questions to type up and copy for use the following day.

Evaluation:
Walk throughout the classroom observing and answering questions. Assess the accuracy of their work and following of directions, ability to think critically, and contribution to the classroom discussion.

Homework:
Interviewing of adults or older siblings within their home.

Here's the Interview Practice Questions Handout.

E-Mail Alex!