Living With Lead Exposure

This lesson plan was created by Vadim Feyder, a high school english and journalism educator in New York City, as part of the 2024 Pulitzer Center Global Health Teacher Fellowship program. It is designed for facilitation across four days. For more lessons created by Pulitzer Center Teacher Fellows in this cohort, click here.

Lesson Overview:

In this lesson, students will explore the dangers of lead exposure in the air and in water. They will first read and analyze the article “Living With the Risks of Childhood Lead Exposure: A Day in the Life.” Then, they will measure the amount of lead in the air and water at various locations within their school. They will then interview multiple people in the school about their awareness of the dangers of lead exposure and whether they are concerned with the amount of lead in the school’s air and water. Finally, students will create an action plan to address this issue.

Lesson Objectives:

By the end of this lesson, students will be able to…

• Analyze the effects of lead exposure on health, particularly in young people
• Measure and analyze levels of lead in school air and water using scientific tools and methods
• Conduct interviews to assess awareness and concerns about lead exposure among school community members
• Develop and present an action plan to address lead exposure in their school environment

Performance Task:

Using the findings from the lead testing and interviews, students should present on their key concerns about both lead levels in their community and awareness of the lead issue in their community.

Enrichment Performance Task(s):

Students craft a detailed exposè in the school newspaper discussing the issue of lead in the air and in the water in the school environment

Assessment:

Formative Assessment(s):

• Participation in discussions and activities
• Completeness and accuracy of lead testing and interview notes

Summative Assessment(s):

Create and share a rubric evaluating the following tasks…

• Student analysis and thoughtfulness in action plan presentations
• Written articles

Notes on Context & Content Advisory:

My students come from various neighborhoods and boroughs of New York City, representing a diverse group of ethnicities. It will be interesting to see if the amount of lead in the air and water in their neighborhoods differs and what the reasons for this difference might be.

This lesson was designed for an high school journalism class. Facilitation is suggested across four days This lesson plan includes pacing, texts and multimedia resources, teacher-created resources, suggestions for implementation, and rubrics for assessment.

COMMON CORE STANDARDS

Reading Standards

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.1: Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly/implicitly and make logical inferences from it; cite specific textual evidence when writing or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the text. 

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.8: Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, including the validity of the reasoning as well as the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence. 

Writing Standards

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.1: Write arguments to support claims in an analysis of substantive topics or texts, using valid reasoning and relevant and sufficient evidence.

Research Standards

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.9-10.7: Conduct research based on focused questions to demonstrate understanding of the subject under investigation. 

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.9-10.8: Gather relevant information from multiple sources, assess the credibility and accuracy of each source, and integrate the information in writing while avoiding plagiarism

Student Work

After reading the Pulitzer Center article about lead, students embarked on an investigation of the lead levels in their own school. Students were provided with lead testing kids and split into small groups to test carious locations around the school. Review the spreadsheet below that captures student-collected data.

After testing the school for lead levels, students interviewed the community about their awareness of the lead issue at the school. Review the spreadsheet below to explore the information they gathered.

Teacher Reflection

Tell us about you, your students, and your community.

I work in a small high school in the Financial District on the lower tip of Manhattan. Students commute to the school from all five boroughs of NYC. Students in the school come from a diverse range of backgrounds. I have been teaching ELA [English language arts] in the school for three years. In the past three years, my colleague and I have started an after-school newspaper club, where students would write and publish stories on a website. This year, I am teaching two sections of a journalism class. This is my first year teaching journalism. The students are mostly native speakers, although there are a few for whom English is not their first language. The students are a mix of 10th- and 11th graders.

Tell us about your lesson.

After reading "Living With the Risks of Childhood Lead Exposure: A Day in the Life,"  I noticed some situational commonalities that I felt would resonate with my students. The article deals with a community in proximity to an airport. In addition, most of our school’s water fountains were not available for use until this year due to toxins found in the water. I wanted my students to experience the process of investigative journalism and what they, as journalists, could do to help their community be better informed and prepared to take necessary action. I also wanted this learning experience to be hands-on. We learned about lead testing and then went out to test for lead in the water and in the paint of rooms and hallways. Students also interviewed teachers, administrators, staff, and other students to get their perspective on how safe our school was from lead exposure. Students then discussed what the school members should do to ensure the school remains safe from toxic exposure. 

Tell us about what your students learned while engaging with the lesson.

• Students learned about the Social Determinants of health and how they impact an individual’s health in the future. 
• Students learned how to read and interpret an infographic. 
• Students learned how to read and analyze an article. They learned how an article is organized. 
• Students learned how to reach out to an individual to request an interview and how to create questions for the interview. 
• Students learned how to interpret results and how to be careful about drawing conclusions based on a limited number of results. 
• Students learned to conduct background research on their topic and to incorporate that knowledge in their writing. They learned how to take their story idea and flesh it out in detail. They learned how to write a lead and nut graph for a story. Students learned how to incorporate quotes in their story. 

The most important thing that they learned is to dig deeper into an issue, to not just skim the surface, but to uncover issues that no one wants you to know about. To ask uncomfortable questions. To pursue and persist. To use their platform as journalists to inform the community. To write without bias. 

As one of the students wrote in her reflection: “... I have learned that the staff and students mainly have issues with lead because of the water fountains. Many students forget to buy or bring their water bottles, which causes them to worry mostly about the lead in water since they need it to stay hydrated.” 

This shows that the student understands the larger issue, which is that possible lead in water fountains can lead to students and staff not drinking water and not being hydrated. Also, not everyone is able to bring a water bottle or have access to clean water. 

Tell us about what you learned by creating and teaching this lesson

I have learned that students really enjoy hands-on learning. Everyone was engaged when students had a chance to test the paint and water for lead. All students wanted to see what their results meant, which shows that it is important to balance theoretical knowledge with specific actions. 

I think in the future I would want to maybe read and analyze an extensive feature article to model what goes into the process, but then have students write articles on topics that interest them. Because all the students were focused on the topic of lead exposure, it created issues with students basically writing the same articles and doing the same research as everyone else. Also, students would interview the same teachers (science teachers) for their articles.

Because we didn’t have positive test results for lead in our school, it seemed that the story would be a non-starter. It felt at times as if we were creating a story where no story exists. Toward the end of the learning experience, I pivoted to allow students to choose their own story topic that was inspired by the process we went through with lead testing, and it went a lot better once students were writing on topics in which they had an interest. 

About Vadim Feyder:

Vadim Feyder is an ELA educator. His 4-day lesson plan reached 50  10th and 11th-grade students at Leadership and Public Service High School in New York City, New York.