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Recognize and explain that living things are found all over Earth, but each is only able to live in habitats that meet its basic needs.
Standard #: SC.2.L.17.2
Standard Information
General Information
Subject Area: Science
Grade: 2
Body of Knowledge: Life Science
Idea: Level 2: Basic Application of Skills & Concepts
Big Idea: Interdependence -

A. Plants and animals, including humans, interact with and depend upon each other and their environment to satisfy their basic needs.

B. Both human activities and natural events can have major impacts on the environment.

C. Energy flows from the sun through producers to consumers.
Date Adopted or Revised: 02/08
Content Complexity Rating: Level 2: Basic Application of Skills & Concepts - More Information
Date of Last Rating: 05/08
Status: State Board Approved
Related Courses
Related Access Points
  • SC.2.L.17.In.2 # Recognize that many different kinds of living things are found in different habitats.
  • SC.2.L.17.Su.2 # Recognize that many kinds of living things are found in the environment.
  • SC.2.L.17.Pa.2 # Recognize common living things in the immediate environment.
Related Resources
Lesson Plans
  • Everglades Habitat Part 3 of 3 # In this lesson, students will recognize Everglades National Park and Marjory Stoneman Douglas as symbols of Florida. They will complete a culminating activity from a variety of options to show their understanding of: animals and habitats, the importance of Everglades National Park, and the importance of Marjory Stoneman Douglas’ work.
  • Everglades Habitat Part 2 of 3 # In this lesson, students will learn about threats to the Everglades National Park and be introduced to the work of Marjory Stoneman Douglas. Students will work together to create an illustration of a threat to Everglades National Park. Write a 2-3 sentence response about Marjory Stoneman Douglas’ work protecting the Everglades and why she is a symbol of Florida.
  • Everglades Habitat Part 1 of 3 # In this lesson, students will learn about different habitats within Everglades National Park and how those habitats meet the needs of the animals that live there through a PowerPoint presentation and whole group discussion. Students will collaborate to complete an interactive matching activity involving animals that live in Everglades National Park habitats.
  • Coding with Everglades National Park Animals # Students will create a program in scratch that sorts animals common to the Everglades National Park according to their main habitat in this integrated lesson plan. They will use the provided Venn Diagram backgound template and choose at least 4 previously-researched Everglades National Park animals to use as sprites. Students will then code the sprites to ‘move’ to the appropriate section of the Venn Diagram (water, land, both).
  • Five Habitats # This is an introductory lesson. After completing all components, students will recognize characteristics of five habitats (ocean, rainforest, desert, polar, and wetlands.) Students will be able to identify organisms that live in each habitat. Also, students will learn about Marjory Stoneman Douglas and her Everglades efforts.
  • A Whale's Tale #    This lesson covers:
    • A humpback whale’s basic needs and how they are similar to humans
    • A humpback whale’s feeding habits and social behaviors
    • Threats to humpback whales and how scientists work to protect them
  • Juvenile Tarpon Reading #
    Students will learn about tarpon life cycles and the many different habitats and resources these fish need as they grow. They will create postcards as “tarpon” in different life stages, explaining what their life is like at that point in their life cycle.
  • Gr. 2 Lesson 3-Wet Season-Dry Season Fish Relay # Students will run a relay race imitating parent Wood Storks feeding their babies; one team during the wet season, the second team during the dry season. Students will draw connections from this relay to what happens to aquatic life as the waters in the Everglades dry.
  • Gr. 2 Lesson 2-Everglades Seasons # Students will act out an "alligator hole ecodrama" occurring during the dry season. Each student will play a role of an animal that depends on the alligator hole.
  • Gr. 2 Lesson 1-Don't Feed the Gators! # Students will read a book on the importance of American alligators and listen to-or act out a play which demonstrates the dangers of feeding wild animals. This is lesson 1 in a series of 3 lessons. Animals in southern Florida are accustomed to their natural environment. They are wild animals with the ability to exist without human intervention. It is detrimental to the American alligator for humans to feed and/or change their natural environment. In areas of southern Florida where American alligators are found, we occasionally hear about problem gators that have attacked dogs and sometimes people. In most of those cases, it is the people who fed the American alligator that are the problem. The American alligators soon begin to associate people with food. When people feed American alligators, they are actually doing it more harm than good. The American alligator no longer gets the balanced diet it would if it were getting its own food in the natural environment. Also, once the American alligator gets used to being fed by humans, it will no longer be able to find food on its own.
  • Canopy Sloth Enclosures MEA # In this MEA, students are asked to rank four enclosures for a new sloth exhibit at the city zoo based on a given set of data. Only one enclosure can be chosen to be built for the new exhibit. 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 processes. 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 MEAs visit: https://www.cpalms.org/cpalms/mea.aspx
  • The Perils of a Plant: Watering Can - An Engineering Design Challenge # This Engineering Design Challenge is intended to help students apply the concepts of life cycles, the understanding that all living things have basic needs, a knowledge of habitats and practice working with money as they build and experiment with containers to meet the water needs of bean plants in all stages of their life cycle. It is not intended as an initial introduction to these concepts.
  • Tadpole Habitat - An Engineering Design Challenge # This engineering design challenge is intended to help students apply the concepts of life cycles, the understanding that all living things have basic needs, build on their knowledge of habitats, and practice working with money as they build structures to meet the needs of a tadpole. It is not intended as an initial introduction to these concepts.
  • Saving the Endangered # In this Model Eliciting Activity (MEA), students are being asked to prioritize four endangered species to Florida based on a given set of data. Only one species can be helped at this time and the team needs to decide which species that should be. 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 processes. 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 MEAs visit: https://www.cpalms.org/cpalms/mea.aspx
  • Manatee Movers # In this Model-Eliciting Activity (MEA), students will assist Sea World with their manatee rescue. Manatees live in many places in the state of Florida. Sea World rescues injured manatees and then releases them back into the wild. Sea World needs help determining safe places to release them. The factors students need to consider will be distance from Sea World, depth of water, and the population of humans living on and using the water source. 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 processes. 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 MEAs visit: https://www.cpalms.org/cpalms/mea.aspx
  • Jellies and Junk # This lesson integrates text features from reading into science with the study of jellyfish. Students will listen to a story, play a game and create a mock jellyfish to represent how trash often looks like jellyfish to the jellies' prey.
  • Home Sweet Habitat # This lesson demonstrates how students can compare and contrast different types of habitats. This lesson provides students with the opportunity to read and discuss various informational texts about habitats and includes a jigsaw learning activity.
  • Insects Everywhere! #

    This resource was completed on a general lesson plan template, but also includes the 5E lesson model. It is an interactive lesson that includes an outdoor exploration. If you do not have the ability of taking your students outdoors you can complete the lesson by having an ant farm in the classroom available for student observations.

Perspectives Video: Professional/Enthusiast
Perspectives Video: Teaching Idea
Resource Collection
Teaching Ideas
Video/Audio/Animation
  • Coral Kid # In this video segment from ZOOM, a Florida girl explores the ecosystem of the warm shallow waters off the coral island on which she lives. Discussion questions and a background essay accompany this video, with closed captioning.
STEM Lessons - Model Eliciting Activity
  • Canopy Sloth Enclosures MEA # In this MEA, students are asked to rank four enclosures for a new sloth exhibit at the city zoo based on a given set of data. Only one enclosure can be chosen to be built for the new exhibit. 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 processes. 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 MEAs visit: https://www.cpalms.org/cpalms/mea.aspx
  • Manatee Movers # In this Model-Eliciting Activity (MEA), students will assist Sea World with their manatee rescue. Manatees live in many places in the state of Florida. Sea World rescues injured manatees and then releases them back into the wild. Sea World needs help determining safe places to release them. The factors students need to consider will be distance from Sea World, depth of water, and the population of humans living on and using the water source. 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 processes. 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 MEAs visit: https://www.cpalms.org/cpalms/mea.aspx
  • Saving the Endangered # In this Model Eliciting Activity (MEA), students are being asked to prioritize four endangered species to Florida based on a given set of data. Only one species can be helped at this time and the team needs to decide which species that should be. 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 processes. 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 MEAs visit: https://www.cpalms.org/cpalms/mea.aspx
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