Big Idea 17: Interdependence

The Everglades-Florida's Treasure is lesson 2 in a series of 3 lessons. Students will be introduced to the relationships between the wildlife and plants that live in different habitats of the Everglades. They will sort cards of plants and animals that live in each habitat.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will look at the different places water comes from and the different ways humans use water. They will label different water bodies and match pictures of human and animal uses of water.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will use a realistic scenario in order to create a Butterfly Trail for their school. The students will be required to activate prior knowledge, brainstorm independently, and also collaborate within cooperative groups to create a model to explain their reasoning.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students use mathematical practices to recommend food packages for the Wildlife Refuge of North America to order.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

The Effects of Pollution: What are the effects that pollution has on living things? Students will learn that pollution is anything that makes air, land, or water dirty. They will become aware that human activities have a big impact on other living things in a number of different ecosystems.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

The students will determine which flowers are the best to plant in a flower garden. The students will receive data about the hardiness of each flower, the amount of sun and water each needs, and the number of flowers each plant will produce. Students may choose a plant that produces many flowers but may not be very hardy.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this open-ended question, students in teams will make decisions about how to rank vegetables to plant on a farm. The students' decisions will be based on various criteria.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. MEAs resemble engineering problems and encourage students to create solutions in the form of mathematical and scientific models. Students work in teams to apply their knowledge of science and mathematics to solve an open-ended problem, while considering constraints and tradeoffs. Students integrate their ELA skills into MEAs as they are asked to clearly document their thought process. MEAs follow a problem-based, student centered approach to learning, where students are encouraged to grapple with the problem while the teacher acts as a facilitator. To learn more about MEA’s visit: https://www.cpalms.org/cpalms/mea.aspx

Type: Lesson Plan

Students observe and write about the life cycle of a caterpillar. A K-W-L chart is utilized to begin discussion, as well as Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson will help students understand the importance of carefully observing and caring for eggs and chickens in the classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students explore the surroundings of the school and observe different types of habitats, recording the environment and what conditions allow animals and plants to thrive there.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will work as a team to rank school lunch items from the most nutritious to the least nutritious.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

Biology lesson plans for a Living Things Unit of study.

Type: Resource Collection

This is a PDF file from the NASA site featuring an online book all about air. This resource can be used as an engage to an activity, to supplement an activity, or as a great review for the completion of an activity. It covers great facts about the Earth's atmosphere and how people, plants, and animals are all dependent on oxygen. The dialogue also rhymes, which provides a great tie into Language Arts.

Type: Teaching Idea

In this activity, students will demonstrate how changes in an environment can affect the survival of an animal.

Type: Teaching Idea

In this activity, students describe an antarctic food chain through the use of song.

Type: Teaching Idea

In this activity, students investigate how a sea lion pup's behavior is important for its survival.

Type: Teaching Idea

In this unit, students learn about metamorphosis and how animals change from birth to the adult stage through observing and collecting data as mealworm larvae progress through their life cycle to the adult stage (beetles).

Type: Unit/Lesson Sequence

This series of activities was developed by the Florida Solar Energy Center, a research institute of the University of Central Florida. The purpose of this unit is to create an awareness of the power of solar energy, the importance of it in our lives, and its impact on the future of energy development.

Type: Unit/Lesson Sequence