BSC 307 “Bugs for Kids” Lesson Plan Form
Title: Home Sweet Home?
Grade Level: 9
Objectives:
TSWBAT….
Describe the basic components of an Ecosystem.
Explain the different ecosystems found in Illinois.
Illustrate factors that affect an Ecosystem.
Illinois State Learning Standards:
11A
5. Report, display and defend the process and findings of issue investigation, presenting oral or written
final report for action response options for peer review, generating further questions or issues for
consideration, or evaluating other resolutions or responses for action for applicable correlations,
consolidation or explanations.
12B
3. Apply scientific inquiries or technological design to study biogeography, researching global biomes,
locating hemispheric, continental, and regional examples of each biome, or graphing associated
mathematical comparison factors.
4. Apply scientific inquiries or technological design to analyze Illinois-specific ecosystems and biomes,
modeling topographic features, population data, plant diversity and distribution from historic records,
collecting scientific seasonal/annual local ecosystem data for direct connection to change and stability
factors, or projecting scenarios of changes to local ecosystem for near- and long-term future
contingencies.
Activity Description:
Students will be introduced to the lubber grasshoppers for the first 5 minutes of class,
then the instructor will ask students to pull out a sheet of scratch paper and write a
hypothesis as to what habitat they believe the lubber grasshopper lives in and why.
Students will then be given 15-20 minutes to use classroom computers to conduct
research on the lubber grasshopper. Once their research is complete students will
accept or refute their original hypothesis during a classroom discussion which will then
lead into a lecture on ecosystems/biomes. To further build upon the idea of ecosystems,
students will choose groups of 4 to begin an ecosystem project which is based upon a
web quest in which they design a virtual ecosystem museum display to educate other
students in the class on an Illinois-specific ecosystem/biome.
Assessment Strategies:
Students will be graded for completeness on their hypothesis about the lubber
grasshopper’s habitat and their reason’s for refuting/accepting their original hypothesis.
Students will receive a group grade for their Illinois ecosystem project and will also be
graded on a unit test.
Rationale:
Students will be fulfilling standards by investigating whether or not their hypothesis is
correct by conducting research and relaying that material to their classmates. Students
will then be extending the knowledge that they have gained through the
ecosystems/biomes lectures by incorporating what they have learned into their Illinois
ecosystem project.
Resources:
Stewart, S. (2003, May 12th). Virtual Ecosystems: A WebQuest for Biology Students.
Retrieved from http://coe.nevada.edu/sstewart/