Week 7: Living Things
Weeks 7, 8, and 9 make up a three-week cycle about living things (Biosphere). Currently, you are in Week A: Teacher As Researcher.

This week, try an activity with your students and analyze what happens. Use the resources listed under Readings, discuss your observations with your teammates, then submit your individual analysis to your Portfolio. Discuss what makes an effective activity with your team and submit a set of criteria to your Portfolio for a grade.

Assignments

Individual: (by midnight Tuesday)

  • Review the Individual Goal and Rubric for your work this week.
  • Read the essential questions and other resources below.
  • Do an activity with your students.
    • Building a Terrarium Habitat
    • Adding Worms to a Terrarium Habitat
  • Post reflections about what students learned from the activity in Teacher as Researcher in the Classroom.
  • Respond to teammates' reflections in Teacher as Researcher in the Classroom.
  • Revisit and revise your criteria for effective concept-building activities in Teacher as Researcher in the Classroom.

Submit your individual observations, reflections and criteria to your Portfolio in the Classroom for a grade.

 

Team: (by midnight Sunday)
  • Review the Team Goal and Rubric for your team's work this week.
  • Revisit and revise your criteria for effective concept-building activities and the learning and teaching strategies that make them work with your teammates in the Teacher as Researcher in the Classroom.

Submit your team criteria with rationale and reflection on the team process to your Portfolio in the Classroom for a grade.

Essential Questions about Living Things
What do you know about living things? What are your key questions? As you do the activities with your students, notice how they address questions like these:

  • How do plants and animals live and die?
  • How do occurrences in other spheres affect the life and death of plants and animals?
  • How do plants and animals affect the land?
  • How do plants and animals affect each other?
  • How is decomposition both an end and a beginning?
  • How does the terrarium support the life needs of the plants and animals?

Readings

In the National Science Education Standards the methods for developing student understanding are described for Life Science, CONTENT STANDARD C: As a result of activities in grades K-4, all students should develop understanding of the characteristics of organisms, life cycles of organisms, and organisms and environments:

1. During the elementary grades, children build understanding of biological concepts through direct experience with living things, their life cycles, and their habitats. These experiences emerge from the sense of wonder and natural interests of children who ask questions such as:

  • How do plants get food?
  • How many different animals are there?
  • Why do some animals eat other animals?
  • What is the largest plant?
  • Where did the dinosaurs go?

An understanding of the characteristics of organisms, life cycles of organisms, and of the complex interactions among all components of the natural environment begins with questions such as these and an understanding of how individual organisms maintain and continue life.

2. Making sense of the way organisms live in their environments will develop some understanding of the diversity of life and how all living organisms depend on the living and nonliving environment for survival. Because the child's world at grades K-4 is closely associated with the home, school, and immediate environment, the study of organisms should include observations and interactions within the natural world of the child.

Web Sites

[ Back to Outline ]

[ Home ] [ Intro ] [ Guide ] [ Classroom ]

  


 

 

HTML by Chris Kreger
Maintained by ESSC Team