|
Week 8:
Living Things
Weeks 7, 8, and 9 make up a three-week cycle about living things (Biosphere).
Currently, you are in Week B: Teacher As Scholar.
This week, build your own knowledge
of the Biosphere. Use the resources listed under Readings,
discuss your questions and answers with your teammates, then submit your
individual questions and answers to your Portfolio. Work with your team
to come up with well-supported answers to the essential questions and
submit them to the 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.
- Post questions about
Living Things, then find articles and web resources to build knowledge
and background in Teacher As Scholar in the Classroom.
- Help teammates to
answer their questions in Teacher As Scholar in the Classroom.
- Revisit and revise your criteria for effective concept-building activities in Teacher as Researcher in the Classroom.
|
Submit your individual questions
and answers to your Portfolio in the Classroom
for a grade.
| Team:
(by midnight Sunday)
|
Submit your team answers to
the essential questions with supporting statements and evidence to your
Portfolio in the Classroom for
a grade.
Essential
Questions about Living Things
Work with your teammates to
answer each other's questions and these essential questions:
- 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
 1.
The biosphere consists of the Earth's living organisms such
as the jungles of the world; grasslands and forests in North America;
fish, kelp, and whales in the ocean; birds in the air; animals on the
farms; bacteria; people; and all of the organic matter not yet decomposed.
A view from space allows people
to see only the really big items: the jungles, forests, and oceans. If
you look closely at the land areas, you can see different shades of green
and brown. These green colors show that different types of plants dominate
different areas, and that the brown areas have almost no plants at all.
These different areas of the biosphere--forests, deserts, grasslands--are
called biomes.
2. On your own, read about
the following topics related to the study of Living Things.
- Biomes
- Consumer/producer/decomposer
communities
- Biodiversity
- Stable ecosystems (What
would throw an ecosystem off balance?)
- How human intervention can
make huge changes in the Earth
3. The content children are
expected to know is described in the National
Science Education Standards and Project
2061 Benchmarks:
- Plants and animals have
features that help them live in different environments:
- Basic needs of organisms
- Characteristics of living
organisms
- Life cycles of living
organisms
- Animals and plants sometimes
cause changes in their surroundings.
- Behavior depends on environment.
- Soils have the properties
of color and texture, the capacity to retain water, and the ability
to support the growth of many kinds of plants, including those in our
food supply.
- Who eats whom?
- How do plants get food?
- What is largest/smallest
plant/animal?
- All animals depend on
plants.
Web
Sites
- Biological
Diversity This University of Nevada site defines biodiversity and
explains its importance to sustainability of the Earth.
- The World
Conservation Monitoring Centre provides information services on
conservation and sustainable use of the world's living resources.
- Ecosystems,
Biomes, and Habitats the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia presents
a wealth of hands-on activities, background information and links to
other websites.
- Coral
Reef Fishes Learn about the diversity, feeding habits and
reproduction of coral reef fishes. Check out the "fish of the week."
[ Back
to Outline ]
[ Home ] [
Intro ] [
Guide ] [ Classroom ]
|
