Grade 6 · Contemporary World Cultures · §113.18 · Problem-Based Learning

The Shared River — One River, Many Nations

A Problem-Based Learning unit. Students study a region built around one great river, take on a stakeholder's point of view, and work a real, ill-structured question — building from surface to deep to transfer learning. The teacher is a guide, not the answer key.

Driving question: Three neighboring countries share one great river. Their populations are growing and each needs the river for drinking water, farming, and hydroelectric power — but the river cannot meet everyone's demand, especially in a dry year. As stakeholders in the region, how should the countries share the river?

The three-phase path (do them in order)

Problem-solving is a transfer move — it only works once students have knowledge to reason with. So the problem in Phase 3 is deliberately gated behind Phases 1 and 2.

① Surface

Build the knowledge

Vocabulary, what makes a region, a jigsaw read, and reading a map + data table. ~1–2 periods.

② Deep

Connect & organize

Resource–needs concept map, secondary sources, points of view, and a structured argument. ~1–2 periods.

③ Transfer

Solve the problem

Meet the problem, take a role, investigate, propose & defend a sharing agreement, debrief. ~2–4 periods.

⛔ Gate: don't open the Phase 3 problem until students have finished the surface and deep activities. Meeting the problem too early turns inquiry into guessing.

Big idea & objectives

Big idea: Geography and scarce resources shape how societies organize their economies and governments, and whether neighbors cooperate or compete. Solving a shared problem means understanding many cultures' needs and points of view.

Know: how a river shapes where people settle, how they earn a living, and why one dry year can turn a shared resource into a shared problem.
Understand: the same river looks different from each country's and each stakeholder's point of view — upstream and downstream do not share the same interests.
Do: run the problem-solving process end to end — define a problem, gather information, weigh options, choose and defend a solution, and evaluate it (§113.18(c)(22)(B)).

Standards this unit is aligned to (§113.18)

TEKS SE	Where it lives in the unit
(c)(3)	Why settlements grow along the river — Surface map/data work, Deep concept map
(c)(4) · (c)(5)	Geography, resources & human–environment interaction — Surface jigsaw, Deep concept map
(c)(6) · (c)(7)	Factors of production; kinds of economic systems — Surface vocabulary & jigsaw
(c)(8)	Reading economic & water-use data across countries — Surface & Deep
(c)(9) · (c)(10) · (c)(11) · (c)(12)	Kinds of government; citizenship, rights & responsibilities — Surface jigsaw, Transfer roles
(c)(15)	Relationships and points of contact among cultures — Transfer inquiry & debrief
(c)(19) · (c)(20)	Source analysis, geographic tools/data, claim + evidence — Deep & Transfer
(c)(22)(B)	The problem-solving process — the entire Transfer phase

Teacher prep & materials

Print the facilitator guide (teacher moves, map of possibilities, role cards, debrief prompts) and the assessment pack (rubric + individual-in-group).
Chart paper or a projected space for three shared columns: Hunches · Know · Need-to-Know (the KWHL chart).
Vetted sources for investigation (district-approved). Suggested public, reputable sources are listed in the facilitator guide.
No logins, no accounts — every page runs in the browser. Student writing and products live on paper or in tools your district already vets.

▶ Start Phase 1 — Surface 🧑‍🏫 Facilitator guide ✅ Assessment 📊 Correlation

Teacher supports: UDL · ELPS · PBL facilitation guide (7 languages)

Aligned to (not reproduced from) 19 TAC Ch.113 §113.18; effect sizes from Visible Learning MetaX. This region and scenario are a teaching fiction based on real transboundary-river dynamics.