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 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 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 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