Day 2: Clinton Lake — Weigh the Evidence

Daily Learning Contract

• Topic: Evidence Integrity
• Objective: Students will separate observations from claims, assess source limits, and write a conclusion that uses three files and names an uncertainty.
• TEKS: d(4)(F)
• Demonstration of Learning: Clinton Lake Evidence Tracker.

Lesson Overview

Before Class

Open all six Canvas evidence images. Keep the teacher guidance below out of the student page. Students need readable individual images or text descriptions; a single projected montage is not sufficient.

Warm-Up (5 min)

A lake is polluted. Which question must investigators answer before naming a cause? Sort responses into harm, timing, source, and missing test.

Activity 1: Evidence Routine (7 min)

Teach four questions: What does the file directly show? Who produced it? What can it not prove? How strongly does it address the case question?

Activity 2: Six-File Review (23 min)

Students review each Canvas image and complete one tracker row at a time. Pause after Files 2 and 4 so students do not treat an inspection note or public statement as independent proof.

Activity 3: Careful Conclusion (10 min)

Students choose the two strongest harm files, one source-related file, and one evidence gap. Their conclusion may support a landfill cause, an outside cause, mixed causes, or insufficient evidence.

Teacher Answer Guidance

• Files 1 and 6 strongly show serious pollution/ecological harm.
• File 3 documents a major storm; File 5 raises possible illegal dumping. Both support plausible outside or mixed causes, not certainty.
• File 2 reports routine landfill conditions but is limited and partly relies on an older major check.
• File 4 is the City's own statement. It reports routine monitoring and containment testing with no evidence of leakage, but it does not provide raw test results or independent verification. That source limitation does not prove leakage.
• No file directly documents a containment failure. A defensible conclusion must preserve that gap.

Integrity here means reporting inconvenient evidence and source limits. Do not tell students that one classroom rule settles every real legal disclosure duty.

Exit Ticket (5 min)

EXIT TICKET (Mini-Case) · Printable PDF:

An investigator omits File 5 because it complicates the team's theory. Identify the integrity problem and the professional next step.

Supports and Fallbacks

• Pre-teach evidence/evidencia, claim/afirmación, source/fuente, reliable/confiable, uncertain/incierto.
• Read each file aloud and let students highlight before paraphrasing.
• A private written conclusion is equal to discussion. An absent student uses all six embedded files independently.