Curriculum Samples
Lesson
- Exploring Fruit
Lesson
- Eggshell Activity
Lesson: American
Flag & Pledge of Allegiance
Lesson:
Tangrams 2
Assessment
Student
Work
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Introduction
Subject: Science
Grade: 5
Time: 13 Lessons (approximately 3 weeks)
Goal
The purpose for studying animal and plant adaptations is many-fold. The main purpose however is to enliven the students knowledge that there is orderliness and intelligence in nature. We see the order and intelligence through the diverse and purposeful adaptations of all animals and plants around us.
During this unit students will answer the four following questions:
- What are adaptations?
- What are some adaptations for living in water and on land?
- What are some adaptations for climate?
- How do organisms become adapted to their environment?
Rationale
Understanding animal and plant adaptations allow the students to further know how the world fits together in its ever-diverse jigsaw puzzle. At the completion of this unit students will have a greater appreciation for why animals and plants are how they are. Students will begin to understand that nature has an organizing power -- bees aren't yellow and black for no reason, everything in nature has a purpose for how it is structured or how it behaves.
This unit also responds to some of the district curriculum science standards and benchmarks for the 5th grade. This includes:
- Literacy Standard #7 -- Understands how species depend on one another and on the environment for survival
- Literacy Standard #9 - Understands the basic concepts of the evolutions of species
- Literacy Standard #14 -- Understands the nature of scientific knowledge and the process of scientific inquiry
Fifth graders are becoming old enough to not just learn about plants and animals, but to learn how plant and animals survive in their environment and how this effects the world around them.
Unit Objectives
By the end of this unit students will be able to:
- Define what an adaptation is.
- Form a hypothesis on the effects of protective coloration
- Explore how adaptations help organisms
- Learn what structural adaptations are
- Discover what behavioral adaptations are
- Contrast behavioral and structural adaptations
- Discover how adaptations help organisms survive in a water environment
- Determine what adaptations help organisms survive on land
- Discover how adaptations help organisms survive in cold climates
- Find out what adaptations help organisms survive in hot, dry climates
- Learn how adaptations help organism survive seasonal changes
- Investigate a model of fat insulation
- Learn what causes variations to occur within a species
- Determine how environmental changes affect species
- Explore why scientists study fossils
- Demonstrate the strength of egg shells
- Create an Adaptations Book
Resources and Materials
This unit was based around the chapter on Adaptations in the following:
Scott Foresman Science
copyright 2000, Addison-Wesley Educational Publishers Inc.
Camouflage Worm
- Various colors of wool 2" long, 20 of each color
Strength of an Eggshell
- 8 eggshells
- Science text books
Investigating Insulation
- 3 large plastic bags
- 1 plastic pail
- timer
- cold water and ice
- shortening
- 2 rubber bands
Animal Adaptations Video - 23 min
Discover the various adaptations that different species have undergone, from the long neck of the giraffe to the white fur of the polar bear. See how changes over time in an animal's environment have affected the lives of the generations that followed.
Animal Life in Action Series.
Adaptations of Animals Video -14 min
Concept of adaptation is made clear using a wide variety of animals, both vertebrate and invertebrate, emphasizing ways in which body structure and behavior are related to environment