Unit 6: Telescopes and Microscopes
Lesson 3 of 3: Lesson Plan: The school trip.
Objectives of the lesson
· To consider how we order life-forms on scales of value.
· To understand that humans search out knowledge, but need to do so ethically.
· To develop empathic skills.
Lesson Outcomes
By the end of this lesson most pupils will:
· Order life-forms in terms of the values they place on them, and re-order after reflective learning has taken place
· Identify empathically to some extent with the experiences of very small life-forms taken as specimens for scientific investigation
· Explore the meanings of ‘respect’
Some will only:
· Sort creatures into order of importance for them
· Sympathise with small creatures which cannot defend themselves
· Create a poster to display their own ideas about ‘respect’
Others will also:
· Explain how the name we give to a creature can influence our attitudes towards it
· Elucidate opposing points of view and find solutions
Key words for this unit
Classify order microscope creation
Lesson Outcomes
(Pupil friendly) By the end of this lesson I will be able to….feel empathy for tiny life-forms, and use this to think more deeply about some of the things we do in investigative science.
Resources needed to teach this lesson
Teacher resource: for information on Tardigrades:
· http://zeldia.cap.ed.ac.uk/tardigrades_org.html (the Edinburgh Tardigrade Project)
· This site has great images which would be suitable for pupils but the text is of adult level.)
· www.nhm.ac.uk/hosted_sites/quekett/tardi.htm (by Phil Greaves, a Tardigrade expert)
In the following lesson plan, information for the teacher is given in italic text. Suggestions for the teacher to address pupils directly are given in normal text.
Introduction / Starter activity / first thoughts
Put these creatures in order of importance to you.
beetle dog snake sparrow
Give pupils two minutes to write down their order. Tell them there is no ‘right and wrong answer’. Ask pupils:
Did you order them according to:
· Size?
· Intelligence?
· Closeness to humans (being kept as pets)?
· Classification – as in mammal, bird, reptile, insect?
· A mixture of these?
Ask some pupils to read out their lists and explain the reasons behind their particular order of creatures, using the questions above to help them.
What do our lists say about how we value other creatures?
· If an animal is very different from us, does that make it seem less important?
· If an animal is very tiny does it seem less important? Is this because we know less about it?
In this lesson we are going to think some more about these sorts of questions.
Main Activities
Activity 1
Read two support texts to the class from the Teacher Resource. (Text 1 could, if preferred, be done kinaesthetically as pupils act out and experience the story physically as it is read to them. This would help pupils to refer to their feelings in the discussion.)
· Can you find any connections between the two stories?
Two children on a school field trip examine specimens under a microscope: this links
to the empathic description of the feelings of the creatures being examined.
Use the Points for Discussion as a basis for class discussion. Pupils may see that it is more difficult to empathise with a creature that is very different from ourselves in shape, size etc.
Points for discussion
· What scientific activity were Jack and Laura doing?
· What scientific instrument were they using?
· The water creatures were still alive when they were put back into the stream. Do you think they were harmed in any way?
· Did the first story help you to think about what it could feel like to be put under a microscope?
· Someone says: “The first story is silly. Tiny water creatures can’t have feelings like us.”
Are they right? Can we know for sure? If they do not ‘feel’ in the same way as us, does this mean we can treat them however we want?
· What skills are we developing when we use our imaginations to ‘put ourselves in the shoes of others’? What does this expression mean? Why are these skills good/important to have? Why is it quite difficult to put ourselves in the shoes of a tiny water creature?
Activity 2
Display the Ancient Chinese Proverb on Pupil Resource 1. Check understanding of a proverb as a wise saying.
Ask pupils in pairs or small groups to write down three (or more) ways in which a human can show respect for an ant. Less able pupils may like to look at suitable reference books showing ants building/carrying etc.
Then share ideas and decide which are generally agreed upon. Write up and display.
Activity 3
Ask pupils to identify one or more amazing facts about Water Bears on the Pupil Resource.
Emphasise that we can only know these facts because of the microscope.
Ask if there is anything in the text which goes against the ways in which humans can show respect for a small creature -as decided in Activity 2. (Freezing them, drying them, and mounting them in glue does not show respect for their lives.)
Does calling them Water Bears make us like them more than when we call them Tardigrades? Why is this? (‘Tardigrades’ means nothing to us, but ‘Water Bears’ makes us think of bears, which we know a lot about (they’re mammals like us and we even have cuddly toy bears!)
Plenary / last thoughts
More able: Humans have a ‘thirst for knowledge’ that other animals do not. What does this mean? Do we need to get our knowledge kindly and wisely? Or is knowledge so important that it doesn’t matter how we get it?
All: On reflection, how would you order the four creatures from the Introduction?
(Some may decide that all the creatures are of equal importance and value).
Differentiation / Extension
Less able: As an extension to Activity 2, make a poster based on the proverb. This may be an alternative to Activity 3.
Research the appearance and lives of water shrimps, mayfly larvae and other water creatures using textbooks, charts or the web. Does finding out more about them make you feel differently about them? If so, how?
In drama or dance, create movement sequences for the water creatures, and for the scientists. Show conflict through harsh movements, and integration through the harmonious linking of sequences. Add music if desired.
More able: link to food webs. If we put ourselves in a food web, does this affect how we feel about animals?
Show clips from the video of ‘Honey I shrunk the kids!’
A Year 6 Community of Enquiry debate:
What is ‘consciousness’?
The facilitator may suggest one or more of these sub-questions:
§ Do different levels of consciousness in species imply that those with a higher level of consciousness are more important?
§ What are some differences between ‘conscious’ and ‘conscience’? Is there a connection between the two?
§ Sometimes people have accidents and ‘lose consciousness’: they can be in a coma for a long time. Are they less important than they were when they were conscious? Is there something else apart from consciousness which makes us important?
Assessment
Pupils may be assessed on the lesson objective, ‘to understand that humans search out knowledge, but need to do so ethically’ using the Assessment Resource.
Notes to teacher
The current emphasis in science teaching at KS1 and 2 is on experimental science. Pupils learn by doing, which is especially suited to kinaesthetic learners. However its development has been at the expense of the nature of science. Pupils are taught to reflect on the results of their experiments, but less on why we do science at all, the morality of some experimentation, and its effects on how we think and upon the natural world – or on whether experimentation is always desirable or necessary.
In this unit, pupils consider the use of the microscope when studying small life-forms, and what this may say about the value we put on those life-forms – amazing in their miniature complexity but usually considered to be of little or no worth.
In the Introduction pupils order four different types of creature in terms of importance or value.
In Activity 1 they read (or have read to them) two texts concerning a school field trip during which pupils use microscopes to examine water life-forms. They are encouraged to empathise with the experiences of the specimens taken for examination.
In Activity 2 pupils reflect upon a Chinese proverb and decide three ways in which a human can show respect for an ant.
In Activity 3 pupils read a non-fiction text about microscopic Tardigrades (Water Bears) and evaluate the level of respect shown to these tiny creatures.
In the Plenary more able pupils reflect on whether the obtaining of knowledge should have ethical constraints put upon it. They return to the Introductory activity and decide whether they would still make the same decisions about how they would order the four different species.
Further notes: The N.C. Programme of Study at KS2 says ‘They begin to think about the positive and negative effects of scientific and technological developments on the environment and in other contexts’. It is worth considering how much importance is given to this statement in supporting textbooks and consequently in our own teacher lesson plans.
The role of the teacher is vital in ensuring an ethical dimension to science lessons.
‘Applied Science’ and ‘21st Century Science’ is addressing this in a focussed way at secondary level, and this may well impact on KS1 and 2 in future.
Duration 1 hour 30 minutes
Year Group Y4 /Y5/ Y6
Cross Curricular Areas Speaking and listening
Foundation subjects: drama & dance [extension activities]
Critical thinking
Creativity
SMSC
Science and Religion in Primary School: Unit 6: Telescopes and Microscopes