First, you will meet with your normal Language Arts groups and review both The Giving Tree and The Lorax.  Scan through the books to remember what each is about and how they are the same.

These links below will give you some new information about trees, how they are used and some concerns people have over what could happen if we continue to use trees at the rate that we do.  As you read the material on the websites below, think about how what you are reading changes your ideas and allows you to think beyond what we have already learned from the books we have read together and our tree studies in science.  Think about why we need trees, and what trees need.  Take notes as you find new information, including where you found it.  You should have at least two noted piece of information for each of the three sites.

http://www.worldalmanacforkids.com/explore/environment4.html

http://www.state.me.us/doc/foliage/kids/forestfacts.html

http://www.americanforests.org/resources/10reasons/

Return to your group and discuss the new ideas you have developed as a result of your research.  Rememeber to work cooperatively with the other members of your group, you are a team!

Each group will be assigned a character from one of the books to whom you will be writing a letter.  Your letter must include at least five facts you have learned from your online research.  Each member of the group will be writing their own letter.  Then you will exchange letters with the others in your group in order to get suggestions for possible changes to improve them and to learn about each other's ideas.

Once everyone in the group has read the others' letters, your group will be creating a poster showing the alternative ending that may have happened had your letters reached the character in the book you've been writing to soon enough.  What would the characters environment have looked like?  Make sure your poster has incorporated at least three key scientific elements you learned about online and that these have been labeled accordingly.  These posters will be presented to the rest of the class, along with one or two of the letters from the individual group members.