As five children travel through the Florida Everglades by canoe, their guide tells them about the evolution of the landscape and life forms around in the Everglades. The language and illustrations describe the beauty and diversity of the Everglades and how it was ruined by people draining the water and building farms and cities on what used to be the Everglades, and the children are given the charge of restoring the Everglades to its former spectacular natural beauty. (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt StoryTown, 2008)

This lesson was created as part of the Basal Alignment Project, during which teachers created CCSS-aligned lessons for existing literary and information texts in basal readers. All page numbers and unit/week designations found in this lesson relate to the edition of the basal reader named above. If you are using a trade book or different edition of this title, the page/unit/week references in this lesson will not match. Consult the content referenced in the body of the lesson to determine appropriate page numbers for your text.