Planning the inquiry
1. What is our purpose?
To inquire into the following:
Sharing the planet: An inquiry into rights and responsibilities in the struggle to share
finite resources with other people and with other living things; communities and the
relationships within and between them; access to equal opportunities; peace and conflict
resolution
Class/grade:
School:
•
Different factors influence the survival of animals.
Summative assessment tasks:
What are the possible ways of assessing students’ understanding of the
central idea?
1. Individual student research (A3 research graphic organiser) on an
endangered animal species. Topics to be covered in research –
appearance, movement, diet, habitat, life cycle, others (adaptations,
offence/defence, dangers/enemies, behaviour).
2. Research to be presented in the form of a non-fiction book.
(student/teacher made rubric)
What evidence, including student-initiated actions, will we look for?
Evidence includes understanding of life cycle, and how animal survives
within its habitat; ability to present findings clearly in written, visual and
oral formats.
Age group: 6/7/8
German European School of Singapore
Teachers: Trafford, Bismilla, Kee, Nontha
2nd May – June 17th
Proposed duration: 35 hours
over number of weeks 7 weeks
2. What do we want to learn?
What are the key concepts (form, function, causation, change, connection,
perspective, responsibility, reflection) to be emphasized within this inquiry?

Function, Connection, Responsibility
What lines of inquiry will define the scope of the inquiry into the central idea?

How animals care for their young

How habitats influence animal survival

Human influences on animal survival
What teacher questions/provocations will drive these inquiries?
 How do different animals care for their young?
 How do baby animals learn to survive?
 What do animals need from their habitats to survive?
 How do humans affect animal survival
© International Baccalaureate Organization 2007
School code: 300219
Title: Animal Survival
Date:
CENTRAL IDEA:
Grade FOU, 1
Planning the inquiry
This column should be used in conjunction with “How best might we learn?”
4. How best might we learn? What are the learning experiences suggested by the teacher and/or
students to encourage the students to engage with the inquiries and address the driving
questions?
What are the possible ways of assessing students’ prior knowledge and skills? What
evidence will we look for?
1. Tuning In:
- Brainstorm all the animals they know and sort into various groups (2 legs/4
legs, in water/on land, feathers/fur, etc.). Students can then write and draw about their favourite
animals.
3. How might we know what we have learned?
 Discussion
of
animal
classifications,
(mammal? reptile, etc., how do you know?).
2. Finding Out
characteristics
- Using websites (from list), students explore class generated questions in
partners.
- Examine the 6 different animal classification groups (invertebrates, fish,
amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals). Students can then make charts about classification and
characteristics.
 What do you know about your favourite animals?
What are the possible ways of assessing student learning in the context of the lines
of inquiry? What evidence will we look for?
1. How animals care for their young?
- Explore which animals live in certain habitats.
- Trips: Zoo (behind the scenes about reptiles?), then guest speakers from
ACRES about endangered animals
1.
Endangered animal project or journal - students will research an endangered animal and suggest an
action plan to help the animal.
2.
What opportunities will occur for transdisciplinary skills development and for the development of the
attributes of the learner profile?
(life cycle, food web, how animals learn to hunt/find food)
Class discussion, movement activities throughout all stages of assessment
2. How habitats influence animal survival
(how animals make their homes, find protection, adapt to environment, self-defence)

Learner Profile – Caring (Learning about how animals care for their young; how to protect
animal species by protecting their habitats)

Attitudes –Appreciation and Respect

Trans-disciplinary Skills
Research- Collecting Data, Organising data: begins to organize information in a logical way
The children will gather information about their chosen animal
Communication – Writing, Speaking
3. Human influences on animal survival
(how animals co-exist with humans, threats to their existence)
5. What resources need to be gathered?
What people, places, audio-visual materials, related literature, music, art, computer software, etc, will be available?
Books from our library and NLB. Excursions: Butterfly Park (Sentosa), Zoo Guest Speakers: Barbara will speak about the Macaque monkeys, from ACRES
organisation.(www.acres.org.sg), see website list from Wendy, Panda Packs Her Bags
How will the classroom environment, local environment, and/or the community be used to facilitate the inquiry?
Zoo (after week 2 of unit), Guest Speakers from Acres (just before summative task of unit), Grade 5 exhibition group for endangered animals, Butterfly Park (too
expensive?, worth the trip?), Barbara Martelli, monkey sanctuary
© International Baccalaureate Organization 2007
6. To what extent did we achieve our purpose?
Reflecting on the inquiry
7. To what extent did we include the elements of the PYP?
•
Assess the outcome of the inquiry by providing evidence of students’
understanding of the central idea. The reflections of all teachers involved in the
planning and teaching of the inquiry should be included.
•
- Function – ecosystems and human actions affecting them. Characteristics of
animal groups (survival)
- Connection – human actions connecting survival of endangered species.
Different factors influence the survival of animals.
- Responsibility - what we can do to help animals
The individual research shows them how specific species’ survival is affected.
When we compare to what they knew at the start of the unit, they have gained a lot of
knowledge from videos, book, etc about how endangered animals are threatened.
How you could improve on the assessment task(s) so that you would have a more
accurate picture of each student’s understanding of the central idea.
- use ask.com to start researching
- choosing animals after the zoo trip allowed for wider variety.
- some difficulty in explaining and thinking about future action to help their
endangered animal for this age group.
develop an understanding of the concepts identified in “What do we want to learn?”
•
demonstrate the learning and application of particular trans-disciplinary skills?
Research- Organising data: begins to organize information in a logical way.
Summative task –
•
develop particular attributes of the learner profile and/or attitudes?

Learner Profile – Caring – caring for animals around school (ants), animals in nature

Attitudes –Appreciation -
Respect – for other living creatures and their environment

What was the evidence that connections were made between the central idea and the
transdisciplinary theme?
•
Different factors influence the survival of animals.
Sharing the planet: An inquiry into rights and responsibilities in the struggle to share
finite resources with other people and with other living things; communities and the
relationships within and between them; access to equal opportunities; peace and conflict
resolution.
- responsibilities – talking about how our actions (contributing to pollution, destroying
habitats, etc). Some of these concepts, because indirect, are not as easy to understand.
But videos have helped somewhat with this. Poachers were common topics – we shouldn’t
buy exotic pets. Some initially thought all animal killing (cows, chickens, etc) was hurting
endangered animals.
- communities and the relationships within and between them – similar to responsibilities.
Our actions affect animals survival.
Trans-disciplinary Skills
Research- Collecting Data, Organising data: The children gathered information about their
chosen animal.
Communication – Writing out data in research collection, Speaking – presenting research
about their animal to a small group in the class.
Reflecting on the inquiry
8. What student-initiated inquiries arose from the learning?
9. Teacher notes
Record a range of student-initiated inquiries and student questions and highlight any that
were incorporated into the teaching and learning.
- poster sets from library and BBC videos are very good,
- zoo – were about to learnt about endangered animals from the information posted
around the zoo. Parents commented that hadn’t learned so much in all previous
visits because they went around with small groups of children and they had tasks
and guiding questions to complete.
- ACRES?
At this point teachers should go back to box 2 “What do we want to learn?” and highlight
the teacher questions/provocations that were most effective in driving the inquiries.
Other Integrated Subjects: (Specialists)
Subject
Y or N
Learning engagements to support PYP unit
GMT
n
Animal vocabulary
GSL
n
Animal vocabulary
GFL
n
Some animal vocabulary from the text they follow
MUSIC
n
Not really connected due to programme
commitment, will do some African animal songs
Ole brought in tadpoles from home that were found in a pond. Watched a tadpoles video
after that.
ICT
n
mind map about the endangered animal they are
researching
Someone brought in their hamster.
ART
n
Collage – drawn realistic animal shape and collage
from re-useable coloured paper, may look at
making collage backgrounds for animal habitats in
final project
PE
n
Animal shape yoga
What student-initiated actions arose from the learning?
Some brought loads of information from home for researching about their own animals in
summative task.
Jack found out about amphibians on his own.
© International Baccalaureate Organization 2007