Students will connect virtually with one or more community members such as police chief, city manager, librarian, or mayor in order to discuss their roles and responsibilities. Students will keep track of what they learn in order to create a poster describing the person and everything he/she does to help the community.

Chapter 4 is all about civics. While many teachers may be tempted to do this chapter first, it is placed here for a reason. Many of the concepts introduced in Chapters 1-3 are revisited here. Some of the content from 1st grade may serve as a great review at the start of the year.

After the whole class has learned about local laws and how they are made, local government officials including city council and the mayor, and how local laws are written and can be changed, higher level students will research a local community problem/issue via the internet and/or by interviewing citizens.  They will then write a letter to the mayor and/or city council bringing attention to the community problem and offering a solution.  This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.

After the teacher has read books about community helpers to students and the whole class has created a chart with columns (Community Helper; What the Helper Does; Effects on the Community), higher level students will work with the attached Job Postings to complete writing of job postings for particular community jobs. This lesson was developed by NCDPI as part of the Academically and/or Intellectually Gifted Instructional Resources Project. This lesson plan has been vetted at the state level for standards alignment, AIG focus, and content accuracy.