|
Adaptations for Predator and prey
Grade Level: |
7 |
Subject: |
Science |
Date: |
2-8-09 |
Teacher: Ami Hawkins |
Objective:
Students will learn to use inquiry skills in order to identify adaptations in animals. Students will
identify animal’s physical characteristics and make a list of adaptations. Then students will classify those adaptations
into groups explaining why those adaptations are important and what they help the animal do to survive. Students will learn
about each animal pair, write lists of adaptations in their journal, and share their findings with the class. Students will
learn why different adaptations are important in relation to location where the animal lives.
|
Education Standards Addressed:
Strand I-Content Standard 1-Understand the processes of scientific investigations
and use inquiry and scientific ways of observing, experimenting, predicting, and validating to think critically.
Benchmark II: 3. Analyze and evaluate scientific explanations.
Strand II-Content Standard II-Understand the properties, structures,
and processes of living things and the interdependence of living things and their environments.
Benchmark I: 4. Explain the conditions
and resources needed to sustain life in specific ecosystems.
6. Understand how diverse species
fill all niches in an ecosystem.
Benchmark II 5.Understand that some
characteristics are passed from parent to offspring as inherited traits and others are acquired from interactions with the
environment.
7. Identify adaptations that favor the survival of organisms in their environments (e.g., camouflage, shape
of beak).
8. Understand the process of natural selection.
9. Explain how species adapt to changes in the environment or become extinct and that extinction of species
is common in the history of living things. |
Materials/ Resources:
Several books and Magazine articles (such as National Geographic) on animals predators and pray. Also
several printed pictures of different animals and computers with internet for research and pictures. |
Focus
Prior Knowledge:
Students will
need a basic understanding of evolution and natural selection. Students also need background knowledge that traits are passed
from parent to offspring and how those traits help with survival. |
Prerequisite Skills:
Students need
observation and inquiry skills, some computer skills, and the ability to make connections by inferring. |
Practice/Assess
Guided Practice:
Students will
be shown on the overhead an example of predator and prey. As a class we will point out characteristics and infer how they
aid that animal in survival. |
Assessment:
Students will be assessed by participation in
groups. A written list of adaptation classification groups will be turned in with journals along with expiations of why those
adaptations are important in relation to location where the animal lives. |
Closure
Wrap Up:
At the end of class we will take a few minutes
to present and talk about each animal pair. Each student team will highlight something interesting they found and answer questions.
|
Independent Practice:
Students will independently read about and
research their animal. In each group each student will pick either predator or pray and look up information about it online
or in the books I provide. They will also independently write in their journals their findings and classifications. Students
will work together in their groups to match up and share the information they gathered. They will discuss the traits and how
the animal’s traits affect one another. Together they will the information
they found. |
Peppered Moth Game
Grade Level: |
7 |
Subject: |
Science |
Date: |
2-8-09 |
Teacher: Ami Hawkins |
Objective:
Students will learn to identify how traits may change from generation
to generation due to natural selection in a population of moths. They will understand that diversity and adaptations due to
changes in the environment are developed by gradual changes over generations. They will discover that unique genetic variations
can either help or hinder the survival of an organism which increases or decreases its chances at reproduction. Students will learn why different adaptations are important in relation to location where the animal
lives. |
Education Standards Addressed:
Strand II, Standard II, Benchmark II.
Biological Evolution
7. Describe how typical traits may
change from generation to generation due to environmental influences (e.g., color of skin, shape of eyes, camouflage, shape
of beak).
8. Explain that diversity within
a species is developed by gradual changes over many generations
9. Know that organisms can acquire
unique characteristics through naturally occurring genetic variations.
10. Identify adaptations that favor the survival of organisms
in their environments (e.g., camouflage, shape of beak).
11. Understand the process of natural selection.
12. Explain how species adapt to changes in the environment
or become extinct and that extinction of species is common in the history of living things.
|
Materials/ Resources:
Computers, paper, pencil, white and black butcher paper, glue sticks, circle cutouts (black, white,
and mix). |
Focus
Prior Knowledge:
Students will
need a basic understanding of evolution and natural selection. Students may also need to know what the industrial revolution
was, and what pollution is and how it is produced. |
Prerequisite Skills:
Students need
observation and inquiry skills, some computer skills, and the ability to make connections by inferring. |
Practice/Assess
Guided Practice:
Hook/Bell Ringer:
Students will go to-
They will complete one trail on either dark
or light trees. This should be done before the bell rings or shortly after. They will record on a piece of paper how many
dark and light moths they ate each year for each tree. We will put their findings on the board and as a class try to come
to a conclusion about the numbers. As a class we will discuss the peppered moth and what happened to its color/camouflage
during the industrial revolution and then again when factories put scrubbers on their smokestacks. We will discuss how unique genetic variations can either help or hinder the survival of
an organism which increases or decreases its chances at reproduction. We will discuss
how the traits are passed from parent to offspring and how
over time natural selection can influence changes in the appearance of an organism.
I will then introduce
a game. I will use this visual to help with my lecture. I will have four sheets of butcher paper each representing a different
year. One black, one white, one mostly black with white, one mostly white with black. One student will be chosen to be a bird
and the rest will be moths. Year one: the trees are white. The students will be given circle cutouts at random and write their
name on the back. Most of the cutouts are white. A few have black on them and very few are mostly black. They will use the
glue to put their moths on the paper. The bird has ten seconds to eat as many moths as possible (only grabbing one at a time).
The moths that live reproduce. They get more circle cutouts that have the same characteristics, with the exception of a few
genetic variations. This will be repeated again for the other three years. Students will record their findings in their lab
books.
|
Assessment:
Students will be assessed two ways. First they
will be graded on their participation in class. If a student is not helping equally
or participating in the game they will receive fewer points. Secondly they will be assessed on completion of task. Their task
is to write in their lab books their findings and answer the questions I give them in complete sentences. This will be turned
in at the end of class. These questions should demonstrate their understanding of natural selection, adaptation, camouflage,
characteristics, genetic variation, adaptation of traits over time, how environmental factors effect populations and how survival is connected to reproduction, |
Closure
Wrap Up:
Toward the end of class the students will write
down the questions I put on the board in their notebooks. They will answer the questions in complete sentences and explain
their reasoning. If time permits the students can play the game again, but this time they can ‘adapt’ their moths
by gluing scraps of paper to them (they will have five seconds to do their ‘adapting’). This time it should be
student ran following the rules of nature.
|
Independent Practice:
Students will independently read about the
moth example in their text books. If it is not in their text books they I will have an internet site they will read from.
Toward the end of class students will answer their questions independently. After they turn this in they will play the game
without teacher assistance. Here they will use their obtained knowledge and insight to discuss with each other how to play
the game according to natures rules. |
|
