12A - Students who meet the standard know and apply concepts that

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Staci Ward
Oct. 6, 2003
C&I 351
Driving question: How do caterpillars turn into butterflies?
Grade level: 3
Rationale: I think learning about the life cycle of living things will be worthwhile at this
grade level. Students will have developed both a curiosity and fascination with living
things (bugs) so they will be interested in the learning “cool” facts about them. It will
also provide a basis of understanding for more complicated systems and how changes in
the environment affect living organisms.
The National Science Education Standards
THE CHARACTERISTICS OF ORGANISMS
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Organisms have basic needs. For example, animals need air, water, and food;
plants require air, water, nutrients, and light. Organisms can survive only in
environments in which their needs can be met. The world has many different
environments, and distinct environments support the life of different types of
organisms.
Each plant or animal has different structures that serve different functions in
growth, survival, and reproduction. For example, humans have distinct body
structures for walking, holding, seeing, and talking.
The behavior of individual organisms is influenced by internal cues (such as
hunger) and by external cues (such as a change in the environment). Humans
and other organisms have senses that help them detect internal and external
cues.
LIFE CYCLES OF ORGANISMS
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Plants and animals have life cycles that include being born, developing into
adults, reproducing, and eventually dying. The details of this life cycle are
different for different organisms.
Plants and animals closely resemble their parents.
Many characteristics of an organism are inherited from the parents of the
organism, but other characteristics result from an individual's interactions
with the environment. Inherited characteristics include the color of flowers
and the number of limbs of an animal. Other features, such as the ability to
ride a bicycle, are learned through interactions with the environment and
cannot be passed on to the next generation.
ORGANISMS AND THEIR ENVIRONMENTS
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All animals depend on plants. Some animals eat plants for food. Other
animals eat animals that eat the plants.
An organism's patterns of behavior are related to the nature of that
organism's environment, including the kinds and numbers of other organisms
present, the availability of food and resources, and the physical
characteristics of the environment. When the environment changes, some
plants and animals survive and reproduce, and others die or move to new
locations.
All organisms cause changes in the environment where they live. Some of
these changes are detrimental to the organism or other organisms, whereas
others are beneficial.
Humans depend on their natural and constructed environments. Humans
change environments in ways that can be either beneficial or detrimental for
themselves and other organisms.
Descriptors
12A - Students who meet the standard know and apply concepts that explain how
living things function, adapt, and change.
1. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to explore past and present
life forms and their adaptations classifying plant and animal groupings
according to simple taxonomy guides or characteristics (e.g., locomotion,
color, habitat, reproduction), categorizing body structures of living organisms
to those from fossil studies, suggesting why changes over time for individuals
and groupings of plants and animals happened, or matching the basic organs
and functions of major human body systems.
12B - Students who meet the standard know and apply concepts that describe how
living things interact with each other and with their environment.
1. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to explore past and current
ecosystems matching fossils of extinct organisms to their probable past
ecosystems, comparing extinct organisms and their past ecosystems to plants
and animals that live in current comparable ecosystems.
2. Apply scientific inquiries or technological designs to examine the
interdependence of organisms in ecosystems, identifying adaptations that
help animals survive in specific or multiple environments, describing the
interaction between living and non-living factors in an ecosystem, or
predicting what can happen to organisms if they lose different environmental
resources or ecologically related groups of organisms.
This is an excellent topic. There is a lot that can be done with this topic to facilitate
inquiry. I believe you are ready to proceed with your unit plan. +10
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