4th Grade Science Circus
Topic: Animals Date: 10/22/12
Grade Level: Fourth Subject: Living System
SOL: 4.5 The student will investigate and understand how plants and animals, including humans, in an ecosystem interact with one another and with the nonliving components in the ecosystem. Key concepts include
a) plant and animal adaptations;
b) organization of populations, communities, and ecosystems and how they interrelate;
c) flow of energy through food webs;
d) habitats and niches;
e) changes in an organism’s niche at various stages in its life cycle; and
f) influences of human activity on ecosystems.
Daily Question: How do plants and animals interact with one another in an ecosystem?
Procedures for Learning Experience / Guiding Questions / Materials Needed / Evaluation (Assessment) / Approximate Time NeededEngagement: Students will be given at each table a worm habitat with real live worms in it. Guide the students with questions that lead them to describe the animal’s features and how we live together with animals. Afterwards, students will be divided into four groups and each station will be explained before they split up. / What living organism do you see and what type of organism is it?
Where do you think they live?
What do they eat and what eats them?
What do they need to survive?
How do we interact with them? / Worms / Students answers to questions / 5 minutes
Exploration: Each of the groups will go to a station. With the help of an adult at the station, students will read the instructions and complete the activity. After 8 minutes, students will proceed to the next station. The teacher will use a timer and wind chimes to signal when the station is over. The following stations are:
1. Food, Flow, and Energy! 2. What’s your Habitat? 3. Cycle your Life! 4. Adaptation Sensation! 5. Humans and the Environment / See student cards / See teacher cards, timer / Students participation and overall behavior, performance during activities, completed worksheets once finished / 8 minutes per station, 40 minutes total
Explanation: Gather the students back at the front of the room and go over the concepts that were covered in the stations. / 10 minutes
Extension: With the students still sitting gathered at the front of the room, show the youtube clip on turtles as they are set free. Emphasize the positive impact humans have with animals. / What do you all see? What enables this animal to live? Where do they live? How do we interact with them? / Youtube clip / Students attentiveness and behavior / 5 minutes
Notes: The worm habitat provided was in a safe container obtained at Petsmart, and students were instructed to keep their distance from this habitat. Rules, procedures, and protocol for the Science Circus stations were made clear to students at the beginning of the Circus in order to maintain effective classroom, behavioral, and time management. Students were instructed to listen to their teachers and only touch materials when explicitly instructed.
Student Circus Cards:
***SOL 4.5 The student will investigate and understand how plants and animals, including humans in an ecosystem interact with one another and with the nonliving components in the ecosystem. Key concepts include:
a)plant and animal adaptations
b)organization of populations, communities, and ecosystems and how they interact
c)flow of energy through food webs
d)habitats and niches
e)changes in an organism’s niche at various stages in its life cycle
f)influences of human activity on ecosystems
*Station 1: Matching your habitat (8 mins) (facilitated by Caily)
*Choose a toy animal from the grab bag and record the name of the animal on the handout.
*Look at the basket of habitat items on the center of the table and match your animal with on item.
*Write down the connection between the animal and the habitat item.
*Compare your recorded answers with that of your classmates.
*Take a small group vote for which animal matches which habitat item.
*Station 2: Human Effects (8 mins) (facilitated by Lydsay)
*This station will help you learn how humans can negatively and positively impact the environment.
*Take a feather and dip it into olive oil. (relate this to what animals experience during oil *Take a cup of water and a cup of soap, and see which helps clean the animal feather more effectively.
*Write down what you notice about the feather when it is dipped in olive oil. Predict how this experiment connects to environmental issues.
*Look at the plastic container for a six-pack of coke and predict how this can negatively impact the environment.
*Look at the stack of paper and predict how this can negatively impact the environment.
*Fill the “Cause and Solution” sheet out with your small group members. Write in how each of the three items can negatively impact the environment under the “Cause” section, write the negative effects on plants, animals, and ecosystems, and write how humans can fix this problem under the “Solution” section.
*Station 3: Adaptation Sensation (8 mins) (facilitated by Denise)
*This station will use tools representative of different types of bird beaks to show how animals have different features and characteristics that help them adapt to their environment. (Ex. Hummingbird beaks are conducive to eating nectar (like a straw) and pelican beaks are conducive to scooping up fish (like a spoon).
*Choose one tool out of tweezers, straw, spoon, chop sticks, miniscissors, and small tongs.
*Attempt to pick up various types of food with your tool. Record which tools are easiest to pick up with your specific tool. The food items provided are marshmallows, small balloons, acorns, small sticks, cereal pieces, and gummi worms.
*Complete a worksheet that has pictures of various types of bird beaks and match your tool to a beak.
*Station 4: Guess Who? (8 mins) (facilitated by Caily)
*This station will focus on the characteristics of different kinds of living organisms in different ecosystems.
*Take one of three different color-coordinated cards labeled “reptile,” “amphibian,” and “mammal.”
*Listen to the teacher who will present a question or statement about a characteristic of a living organism. (For example, “Which of these lays eggs?”)
*Hold up the card that you think is the correct answer. Correct answers will receive tally marks on the board. You may hold up more than one card.
*After game is over, be a part of a “Round Robin” story-telling game where you and your small group will contribute a sentence to a story about how a plant, amphibian, and mammal interact in one habitat.
*Station 5: Food Webs: (8 mins) (on their own)
*Align index cards in a vertical position from producer at the bottom to tertiary consumer at the top.
*Gather five envelopes and open then one at a time.
*Remove pictures of plants and animals, labeling them as producers, primary consumers, secondary consumers, and tertiary consumers from five different habitats.
*Identify the habitat as Ocean, Tropical Rainforest, Desert, Grasslands, and Polar Ice.
*Order each of the parts of the food web in order starting with producer at the bottom and tertiary consumer at the top for each of the habitats.
*The examples that will be used are as follows:
Animals, Insects, and Plants used:
Banana Tree Insect Parrot Python = Rainforest
Seaweed Shrimp Fish Shark = Ocean
Kacti Rat Snake Hawk
Krill Polar Cod seal polar bear = Polar Ice
Grass Grasshopper Lizard Owl = Grasslands
Teacher Cards:
Introduction: Worms –Guiding Questions to prepare students for circus. (10 minutes) Gather students at front, look at live worm habitat and observe. Ask guiding questions.
a)What living organism do you see? What type of organism is it?
b)Where do you think they live?
c)What do you think this organism eats? What eats them?
d)What do they need to survive?
e)How do humans interact with worms in the environment?
*Discuss the connection between today’s circus and the Ecosystems unit that students have been working on. Explain that each station will focus on a specific topic that is an important part of Ecosystems. List circus procedures, safety, and protocol. (2 minutes).
*Station 1: Matching your Habitat
Topic: Matching Organisms to their Habitat and recognizing their niches. Key concepts include recognizing the features and characteristics of a physical environment and matching an organisms behaviors and variables such as wind, temperature, humidity, etc that affect them.
Grade Level: 4th – 5th
SOL 4.5 d. habitats and niches
Materials: seaweed, pine needles, acorns, grass, banana etc, representative of habitats, as well as corresponding toy animals to match them—fish, bear, chipmunk, giraffe, tree frog, etc, handout listing animals, habitats matched, and explanation for why the two go together, grab bag
Source:
Notes: Students will match toy animals to materials representative of different habitats. They will fill out a handout matching each of the respective animals with a habitat item and state their reasons for why the two go together (For example, the grass goes with the giraffe because giraffes eat vegetation and are from the grasslands
Questions: What do animals need to survive effectively in their habitats?
What are characteristics of different habitats?
How do animals interact with their habitat?
*Station 2:Human Effects
Topic: Awareness of the effects of human actions on the environment. Students will observe a feather dipped in oil, plastic from a six-pack of soda, and a stack of paper, predicting how these all can negatively impact the environment and offer conclusions for how humans can help fix these problems.
Grade Level: 4th-5th
SOL 4.5 f: influences of human activity on ecosystems
Materials: oil, feathers, detergent, plastic from a six-pack of soda, stack of paper, “Cause, Effect, and Solution” handout, three bright and different-colored markers
Source:
Notes: Students will each receive a feather and dip it in olive oil. They will attempt to clean the feather off with both water and detergent. They will then state how the feather is representative of pollution in the environment, and predict the negative affects on the environment as well as positive solutions for how humans can help fix this issue. Students record their predictions and conclusions in the “Cause, Effect, and Solution” handout. They will then look at the plastic on a six-pack case of soda and predict how this affects the environment. They will then come up with positive ways to fix this problem. Finally, they will look at the stack of paper and predict how it is representative of negative effects on the environment. They will come up with ways to solve this problem. All predicts, inferences, and solutions will be recorded on the handout.
Questions:
How do humans both positively and negatively impact the environment?
How does pollution occur in the ocean? What are the effects of ocean pollution on animals?
How does paper relate to deforestation? What are the negative effects of deforestation?
What are ways that students can get involved in cleaning up the environment and advocating for a healthier environment?
What is the importance of recycling?
*Station 3: Adaptation Sensation
Topic: Recognizing different ways that animals adaptations that animals possess to function effectively in their environment.
Grade Level: 4th-5th
SOL 4.5 a: plant and animal adaptations
Materials: tweezers, straw, spoon, chop sticks, miniscissors, small tongs, marshmallows, small balloons, acorns, small sticks, cereal pieces, gummi worms, handout with pictures of bird beaks and fill in the blank questions.
Source:modified from Lakes Science Collaborative:
Notes: The purpose of this activity is to understand how animals possess different adaptive characteristics that help them function—specifically eat—effectively in their habitat. Students will receive tools that have similar motions to different kinds of bird beaks (ex. Spoon for scooping motion similar to a pelican beak.) They will match their tool to a different bird beak (ex. Straw to a hummingbird beak) and record the types of foods that were easiest to pick up.
Questions: What are animal adaptations that help them function effectively in their environments?
What are similarities you see between different bird beaks and the tools provided?
Which food particles were easier to pick up? Why do you think beaks are different based on the habitats in which animals live?
*Station 4: Guess Who?
Topic: Differentiating animals from one another: reptiles, amphibians, and mammals
Grade Level: 4th-5th
SOL 4.5 a: plant and animal adaptations
b: changes in an organism’s niche at various stages in its life cycle
Materials: List of questions about mammals, reptiles, and amphibians, signs for students to hold up with each of the different types of animals, pencil, and paper
Source: questions from
Notes: Students will each receive a sign with ‘reptile,’ ‘amphibian,’ and ‘mammal’ on the front. The facilitator will ask questions or make statements such as, “This animal lays eggs.” Students will hold up the sign for which type of animal this statement or question defines or answers. After the questions are complete, students will round robin a story where a reptile, amphibian, and mammal all interact in their environment.
Questions: What are general characteristics of mammals, amphibians, and reptiles?
How are these animals different from each other? How are they similar?
In which kinds of habitats do each of these types of animals thrive? Why?
*Station 5: Food Webs
Topic: The Food Chain and Food Webs.
Grade Level: 4th -5th
SOL: 4.5b. organization of populations, communities, and ecosystems and how they interact
4.5c. flow of energy through food webs
Materials: picture cut-outs of different plants and animals from 5 different habitats, 5 envelopes, index cards with the different categories of the parts of a food web (labeled consumer, decomposer, etc).
Animals, Insects, and Plants used:
Banana Tree Insect Parrot Python = Rainforest
Seaweed Shrimp Fish Shark = Ocean
Kacti Rat Snake Hawk
Krill Polar Cod seal polar bear = Polar Ice
Grass Grasshopper Lizard Owl = Grasslands
Source:
Notes: Students will be given an envelope with picture cut-outs of an animal or plant. They will differentiate Producers, Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Consumers from one another from five different habitats: desert, tropical rainforests, grasslands, polar ice, and ocean. Students will then place the plants and animals in order from producer to tertiary consumer to show the progression in a food chain.
Questions: What differentiates producers from consumers and decomposers?
How do each type of organism impact the environment?
Why is balance important in a food web?
How do you choose where to put each organism? Were there any that gave you trouble, and if so, why?
*Closure:
*Ask students to return to their seats. Remind students that this circus was about Ecosystems, and ask them one thing that they learned or experienced from each station.
1)Habitats different plants and animals have different needs. They eat different foods, need different shelter, and weather to survive and be healthy.
2)Learning characteristics of different living organisms. You learned how to differentiate amphibians from mammals and plants, and learned more about the life cycles of each. (ex. Mammals give birth while amphibians lay eggs).
3)Adaptations you learned that different animals have to adapt their environments so that they can survive and are equipped with appropriate body parts and habits that help them eat and drink. (ex. Pelican = scooping motion for beak because it fishes and lives near water, while the hummingbird beak sucks in nectar from flowers)
4)Food Webs: We focused on 5 different habitats, and the order of their food webs, from plant producers to tertiary consumers.
5)Human Effects we learned that humans have a huge impact on the overall health of the animal habitats and ecosystems. We learned that some manmade inventions harm ecosystems, and came up with solutions to help preserve the health of animals and their natural habitats.