What does it take for a plant or animal to survive? What behavioral or structural adaptations does it need to get food, reproduce, and avoid being eaten? How do communities of animals and plants work and what happens when something goes wrong? Students try their hands at designing seeds, creating food webs, classifying adaptations. A gel ant farm is a fascinating and easy way to observe living things surviving up close.
Survival Tips:
Have students plant the seeds as soon as possible; the larger the plants are for lesson 4, the better. Order ants if none can be found outside. See AntWorks instruction booklet.
Lesson 1: Investigating Seeds
Lesson 1 - Investigating Seeds
OBJECTIVE
Students will design flying seeds, identify structural adaptations of seeds, and prepare for future experiments onplants.
AAAS BENCHMARKS COVERED*
Scientific investigations may take many different forms, including observing what things are like or what is happening somewhere, collecting specimens for analysis, and doing experiments. Investigations can focus on physical, biological, and social questions. Measuring instruments can be used to gather accurate information for making scientific comparisons of objects and events and for designing and constructing things that will work properly. There is no perfect design. Designs that are best in one respect (safety or ease of use, for example) may be inferior in other ways (cost or appearance). Usually some features must be sacrificed to get others. How such trade-offs are received depends upon which features are emphasized and which are down-played. Even a good design may fail. Sometimes steps can be taken ahead of time to reduce the likelihood of failure, but it cannot be entirely eliminated. Make sketches to aid in explaining procedures or ideas.Use numerical data in describing and comparing objects and events.
COMMON CORE ELA STANDARDS COVERED:
“Making Peace with Dandelions–4.RI.1: Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text; 4.RI.3: Explain events, procedures, ideas,or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text, including what happened and why, based on specific information in the text; 4.RI.8: Explain how an author uses reasons and evidence to support particular points in a text; 4.W.3: Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique,descriptive details, and clear event sequences; 4.W.3b: Use dialogue and description to develop experiences and events or show the responses of characters to situations.
Vocabulary – 4.L.4a: Use context (e.g., definitions, examples, or restatements in text) as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.
COMMON CORE MATH STANDARDS COVERED:
“Investigating Seeds-Design”– Mathematical Practices: 1 thru 8 (see above)
NGSS STANDARDS COVERED: 3-LS3-2
Lesson Outline
Introduce the new unit.
Ask if students have experience walking through a field or yard and finding seeds stuck to their pants, socks, and shoes.
Discuss why plants have developed seeds that stick to people and other animals.
Discuss other seed adaptations students are familiar with (e.g., cottonwood or maple seeds).
Read Student Booklet inside front cover as a group or individually. Discuss.
Explain that their task is to design a seed that will fly the farthest.Introduce the materials available and tell them the time limit.
Allow time to work.
Test each group's seed using the fan.
Explain that they will be investigating other adaptations of plants so they will need to grow some plants. Plant seeds and review care instructions.
Lesson 2: Desert Food Web
Lesson 2 - Desert Food Web
OBJECTIVE
Students will use information provided to construct a food web.
AAAS BENCHMARKS COVERED*
For any particular environment, some kinds of plants and animals survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all. Insects and various other organisms depend on dead plant and animal material for food. Organisms interact with one another in various ways besides providing food. Many plants depend on animals for carrying their pollen to other plants or for dispersing their seeds.
Changes in an organism’s habitat are sometimes beneficial to it and sometimes harmful. Almost all kinds of animals’ food can be traced back to plants. Some source of“energy” is needed for all organisms to stay alive and grow. Over the whole earth, organisms are growing, dying, and decaying, and new organisms are being produced bythe old ones.
NGSS STANDARDS COVERED: 5-LS2-1, 5-PS3-1
COMMON CORE ELA STANDARDS COVERED:
“Desert Food Web”(Students share food web cards and then create with classmates a relational web of predator and prey) — 4.W.7: Conduct short research projects that build knowledge through investigation of different aspects of a topic; 4.SL.1: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one,in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 4 topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly; 4.SL.1a: Come to discussions prepared, having read or studied required mate-rial; explicitly draw on that preparation and other information known about the topic to explore ideas under discussion; 4.SL.1b: Follow agreed-upon rules for discussions and carry out assigned roles; 4.SL.1c: Pose and respond to specific questions to clarify or follow up on information, and make comments that contribute to the discussion and link to the remarks of others; 4.SL.1d: Review the key ideas expressed and explain their own ideas and understanding in light of the discussion; 4.SL.4: Report on a topic or text or present an opinion, sequencing ideas logically and using appropriate facts and relevant, descriptive details to support main ideas or themes; speak clearly at an understandable pace.
“Is That Mammal a Carnivore, Herbivore or Omnivore?” — 4.RI.1: (see above); 4.RI.2: Determine the main idea of a text and explain how it is supported by key details; summarize the text; 4.RI.3: (see above); 4.L.4:Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grade 4 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a range of strategies; 4.L.4a: (see above).
Vocabulary: 4.L.4a, 4.L.5c: (see above).
Lesson Outline
Explain that today they will be constructing a food web on Student Booklet page 2. They will have to read information cards to find out what the relationships are among 10 kinds of animals and plants that live in the desert.
Explain that food webs are much more complex but that this is a good introduction.
Explain that as they learn about each of the plants or animals, they should position their 10 pictures and arrange them on Student Booklet page 2.
Instruct them to draw arrows from the predator to the prey. Suggest that they put the two plant pictures in the top two rectangles.
Stress the following cooperative learning rules. Each student in the group will be responsible for the information on several cards. They are allowed to share the information but they are NOT allowed to read the card out loud OR allow anyone else to see the card or read the information.
Allow time to work.
When students are finished, compare food webs.
Discuss the importance of plants in any food web.
Focus students'attention on the adaptations that plants and animals have to survive in the desert.
Lesson 3: Pollution
Lesson 3 - Pollution
OBJECTIVE
Students will identify pollutants in the environment and learn the damage they can cause.
AAAS BENCHMARKS COVERED*
Mathematical ideas can be represented concretely, graphically, and symbolically. Technologies often have drawbacks as well as benefits. A technology that helps some people or organisms may hurt others—either deliberately (as weapons can) or inadvertently (as pesticides can). When harm occurs or seems likely, choices have to be made or new solutions found. Because of their ability to invent tools and processes, people have an enormous effect on the lives of other living things.
NGSS STANDARDS COVERED: 4-ESS3-2
COMMON CORE ELA STANDARDS COVERED:
“The Beautiful, Powerful Jaguar”—4.RI.10: By the end of year, read and comprehend informational texts, including history/social studies, science, and technical texts, in the grades 4–5 text complexity band proficiently, with scaffolding as needed at the high end of the range; 4.L.4: (see above); 4.RF.3: Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words; 4.RF.4c: Use context to confirm or self-correct word recognition and understanding, rereading as necessary.
Vocabulary: 4.W.8: Recall relevant information from experiences or gather relevant information from print and digital sources; take notes and categorize information, and provide a list of sources; 4.L.6: Acquire and use accurately grade-appropriate general academic and domain-specific words and phrases, including those that signal precise actions, emotions, or states of being (e.g., quizzed, whined, stammered) and that are basic to a particular topic (e.g., wildlife, conservation, and endangered when discussing animal preservation).
COMMON CORE MATH STANDARDS COVERED:
Pollution-1 Worksheet—4.OA.5: Generate a number or shape pattern that follows a given rule. Identify apparent features of the pattern that were not explicit in the rule itself. For example, given the rule “Add 3” and the starting number 1, generate terms in the resulting sequence and observe that the terms appear to alternate between odd and even numbers. Explain informally why the numbers will continue to alternate in this way; 4.NBT.1: Recognize that in a multi-digit whole number, a digit in one place represents ten times what it represents in the place to its right. For example, recognize that 700 ÷ 70 = 10 by applying concepts of place value and division.
Pollution-2 Worksheet—4.MD.2: Use the four operations to solve word problems involving distances, intervals of time, liquid volumes, masses of objects, and money, including problems involving simple fractions or decimals, and problems that require expressing measurements given in a larger unit in terms of a smaller unit. Represent measurement quantities using diagrams such as number line diagrams that feature a measurement scale; 4.MD.4: Make a line plot to display a data set of measurements in fractions of a unit (1/2, 1/4,1/8). Solve problems involving addition and subtraction of fractions by using information presented in line plots. For example, from a line plot find and interpret the difference in length between the longest and shortest specimens in an insect collection; 4.NF.3a: Understand addition and subtraction of fractions as joining and separating parts referring to the same whole; 4.NF.3d: Solve word problems involving addition and sub-traction of fractions referring to the same whole and having like denominators, e.g., by using visual fraction models and equations to represent the problem.
Fraction Worksheet—4.NF.2: Compare two fractions with different numerators and different denominators,e.g., by creating common denominators or numerators, or by comparing to a benchmark fraction such as 1/2.Recognize that comparisons are valid only when the two fractions refer to the same whole. Record the results of comparisons with symbols >, =, or <, and justify the conclusions, e.g., by using a visual fraction model;4.NF.3d: (see above).
Lesson Outline
Discuss natural disasters that affect the survival of plants and animals.
Discuss human caused reasons that affect the survival of plants and animals.
Display "Pollution Stinks" poster and discuss the different kinds of pollution shown.
Read Student Booklet page 3 about the mercury poisoning that occurred in Minamata Bay in Japan. Have students model parts per million with water and graphically using Student Booklet page 4.
Lesson 4: Adaptation
Lesson 4 - Adaptation
OBJECTIVE
Students will begin experiments to investigate phototropism and geotropism in plants and learn the function of leaves and roots.
AAAS BENCHMARKS COVERED*
Results of scientific investigations are seldom exactly the same, but if the differences are large, it is important to try to figure out why. One reason for following directions carefully and for keeping records of one’s work is to provide information on what might have caused the differences. Scientists’ explanations about what happens in the world come partly from what they observe, partly from what they think. Sometimes scientists have different explanations for the same set of observations. That usually leads to their making more observations to resolve the differences. Individuals of the same kind differ in their characteristics, and sometimes the differences give individuals an advantage in surviving and reproducing. Keep a notebook that describes observations made, carefully distinguishes actual observations from ideas and speculations about what was observed, and is understandable weeks or months later.
NGSS STANDARDS COVERED: 3-LS3-2; 3-LS4-4; 5-LS1-1
COMMON CORE ELA STANDARDS COVERED:
Investigating Plants-1 Worksheet (Students are asked to design an experiment to demonstrate “tropism”)— 4.W.2: Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly 4.W.2b: Develop the topic with facts, definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples related to the topic; 4.W.2c: Link ideas within categories of information using words and phrases(e.g., another, for example, also, because); 4.W.2d: Use precise language and domain-specific vocabulary to inform about or explain the topic; 4.W.4: Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience; 4.W.7: (see above); 4.W.10:Write routinely overextended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting ora day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences.
Investigating Plants-3 Worksheet (Students are asked to present their findings) — 4.SL.1, 4.SL.1b, 4.SL.1c,4.SL.1d, 4.SL.4: (see above).“The Sensitive Plant”— 4.RI.1, 4.RI.10: (see above).
Vocabulary: 4.L.4, 4.L.4a: (see above); 4.L.5: Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings; 4.L.5c: (see above).
COMMONCORE MATH STANDARDS COVERED:
Investigating Plants-2 Worksheet (Students asked to collect data and create a graph to record their findings) — 4.MD.4: (see above); Mathematical Practices 1thru 8
Bean Plant Bar Graph—4.MD.4: (see above).
Lesson Outline
Review the adaptations of the plants discussed in the Food Web lesson.
Set up the experiment that will show the importance of light and respiration to leaves. One leaf will be covered with black paper to block sunlight. Another leaf will have the bottom smeared with petroleum jelly to block respiration.
Explain that students are going to do an experiment on tropisms or another adaptation and will use their seedlings.
Read and discuss the four boxes on Student Booklet page 5.Allow partners to decide which tropism they are going to investigate. If students are interested in another plant adaptation and can design an experiment, allow them to.
If necessary, discuss the need for a control plant and for controlling all but the independent variable.
Have students write up their experimental design and get it approved by you.
Students may begin their experiments immediately.
Lesson 5: Structure and Function
Lesson 5 - Structure and Function
OBJECTIVE
Students will identify distinctive structures and body systems on animals that serve specific functions.
AAAS BENCHMARKS COVERED*
For any particular environment, some kinds of plants and animals survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all. Insects and various other organisms depend on dead plant and animal material for food. Organisms interact with one another in various ways besides providing food. Many plants depend on animals for carrying their pollen to other plants or for dispersing their seeds. Changes in an organism’s habitat are sometimes beneficial to it and sometimes harmful. Almost all kinds of animals’ food can be traced back to plants. Some source of“energy” is needed for all organisms to stay alive and grow. Over the whole earth, organisms are growing, dying, and decaying, and new organisms are being produced by the old ones. Individuals of the same kind differ in their characteristics, and sometimes the differences give individuals an advantage in surviving and reproducing.
COMMON CORE ELA STANDARDS COVERED:
Structure and Function Worksheet in Student Booklet (Students are asked to choose the three adaptations they find most interesting and explain why they chose them.Assignment is to be written and then shared with the class) — 4.W.1: Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information; 4.W.1a: Introduce a topic or text clearly, state an opinion, and create an organizational structure in which related ideas are grouped to support the writer’s purpose; 4.W.1b: Provide reasons that are supported by facts and details; 4.W.2: Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly; 4.W.7, 4.W.10, 4.SL.1, 4.SL.1a, 4.SL.1b, 4.SL.1c, 4.SL.1d: (see above).
“Stink Blob to the Rescue”— 4.RI.1, 4.RI.3, 4.L.4, 4.L.4a: (see above).
Vocabulary: 4.L.4, 4.L.4a, 4.L.5, 4.L.5c: (see above).
NGSS STANDARDS COVERED: 3-LS4-2; 4-LS1-2
Lesson Outline
Review some of the adaptations covered so far. Discuss the how certain characteristics improve survival and are passed on to future generations.
Discuss the terms "structure" and "function." Discuss the function of the structures featured on the Structure and Function photos.
Explain that each group will be given a set of cards with physical adaptations and animals on them. Their task is to look at the cards and match the structure and example animal with the function.When they have finished, assign Student Booklet page 8 which asks them to write about three of the sets they find interesting. Students who finish early can use the cards to play Concentration.
Lesson 6: Behavioral Adaptations
Lesson 6 - Behavioral Adaptations
OBJECTIVE
Students will explore the behavioral adaptations that improve an animal’s chance of survival.
AAAS BENCHMARKS COVERED*
For any particular environment, some kinds of plants and animals survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all. Insects and various other organisms depend on dead plant and animal material for food. Organisms interact with one another in various ways besides providing food. Many plants depend on animals for carrying their pollen to other plants or for dispersing their seeds. Changes in an organism’s habitat are sometimes beneficial to it and sometimes harmful. Almost all kinds of animals’ food can be traced back to plants. Some source of“energy” is needed for all organisms to stay alive and grow. Over the whole earth, organisms are growing, dying, and decaying, and new organisms are being produced by the old ones.Individuals of the same kind differ in their characteristics, and sometimes the differences give individuals an advantage in surviving and reproducing.
NGSS STANDARDS COVERED: 3-LS2-1; 3-LS4-3
COMMONCORE ELA STANDARDS COVERED:
“Adaptation”in Student Workbook (Students are asked to write a research report choosing two different animals that share the same adaptation) — 4.W.1, 4.W.1a, 4.W.1b, 4.W.2, 4.W.7, 4.W.8, 4.W.10: (see above).
“Feathered, but not ready for Takeoff”Article,Questions &Vocabulary”—4.RI.1, 4.RI.3, 4.L.4, 4.L.4a: (see above).
Lesson Outline
Discuss some of the behavioral adaptations students make to survive recess and lunch.
Discuss some of the behavioral adaptations of animals they have already discussed.
Assign Student Booklet page 9.Assign "My Adaptation Report" to be completed for the next lesson.Distribute Survival Cards: Behavioral Adaptations.
Have students match the animal and the adaptations.
Show students the Ant Farm. Explain that the gel was developed so ants could be observed in weightless conditions on the Shuttle.
Prepare the Farm (poke four holes in the gel) and add the ants.
Lesson 7: Research Results
Lesson 7 - Research Results
OBJECTIVE
Students will present the results of their research on tropisms and an adaptation of interest to them.
AAAS BENCHMARKS COVERED*
Buttress their statements with facts found in books, articles, and databases, and identify the sources used and expect others to do the same. Recognize when comparisons might not be fair because some conditions are not kept the same. Seek better reasons for believing something than “Everybody knows that...” or “I just know” and discount such reasons when given by others.
COMMON CORE ELA STANDARDS COVERED:
My Adaptation Report in Student Workbook (In Lesson 4 students were asked to design and begin conducting are search report on plants and different kinds of tropisms; their causes and effects. In Lesson 7 they are asked to present their findings to the class) — 4.SL.1, 4.SL.1a, 4.SL.1b, 4.SL.1c, 4.SL.1d, 4.SL.4, 4.W.2: (see above); 4.W.2a: Introduce a topic or text clearly, state an opinion, and create an organizational structure in which related ideas are grouped to support the writer’s purpose; 4.W.2b, 4.W.2c, 4.W.2d: (see above); 4.W.2e: Provide a concluding statement or section related to the information or explanation presented; 4.W.7: (see above); 4.W.9: Draw evidence from literary or informational texts to support analysis, reflection, and research; 4.W.10: Write routinely over extended time frames (time for research, reflection, and revision) and shorter time frames (a single sitting or a day or two) for a range of discipline-specific tasks, purposes, and audiences.
Lesson Outline
Have students share their research with their peers. Encourage the other students to ask thoughtful questions.
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