Lesson: Pals From the Pound

Ask students if they have a pet. If they answer yes, ask them if they adopted their pet from an animal shelter. Then ask for reasons why someone might adopt a pet from a shelter. Tell your students they will be reading about how an animal shelter reacted to the Covid-19 crisis, which presented unique challenges to animal shelters.

Distribute or digitally share the “Problem and Solution” skills sheet. Ask students to fill out the first row using the central problem from the article. Then have students brainstorm ways that people have become helpers during the Covid-19 pandemic. For each idea, have students state the problem the helper noticed and the solution the helper used to fix the problem. Ask for volunteers to share their problem-and-solution pairs with the class.

Post the following discussion questions for your students to think about as they read the article:

• How is the Covid-19 crisis affecting shelters and their animals? (Animal shelters were forced to close, which made workers fear that the animals wouldn’t get adopted. People were spending more time at home, so more people had the opportunity to foster or adopt. Social media and virtual meet-and-greets helped get animals adopted or fostered.)

• Why did shelter workers fear for the animals? (If animals aren’t adopted, they are euthanized.)

Play the instructional video. Then post the following questions and play the video again so that students can look for the answers to the posted questions.

• What is the difference between a mathematical expression and an algebraic expression? (Algebraic expressions are mathematical expressions that include one or more variables, or letters/symbols that stand for numbers.)

• How do you evaluate an expression? (Replace the variable with the given number, then simplify the resulting numerical expression.)

• In the mountain-climbing example, why is multiplication the operation used? (The anchors are spaced at equal intervals of 20 feet.)

Have volunteers read through the introduction and the example of the “Writing and Evaluating Expressions” box on page 21 and ask:

• Why should we use subtraction to solve this problem? (The problem is a comparison question asking “how many more than,” which requires subtraction.)

• What do you do to evaluate the expression you wrote? (Replace the variable with the value you are given, then complete the operation.)

Tell students to make two sets of cards (either using index cards or small pieces of paper). On one set of cards, students can write algebraic expressions with one variable. On the other set of cards, students can write numerical values. Have students grab a card from the expression pile and a card from the number pile, then use the number to evaluate the expression. Students can continue mixing and matching these cards to practice evaluating expressions. For a challenge, students can write decimals, fractions, or negative numbers on their number cards.