Big Idea 14: Organization and Development of Living Organisms

Students will learn about the Florida state flag and understand that it represents the state of Florida. They will learn about the visual elements of the flag by observing representations of living organisms and discussing their similarities and differences in this integrated lesson plan.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will explore how the five senses help us make careful observations of rules, behaviors, and consequences to produce learning in this integrated lesson plan.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students reflect on the Founders’ decision to name the bald eagle as our national bird and symbol.  They form their own opinion about whether bald eagles or wild turkeys would make a better national symbol and express their opinion with supporting reasons or facts.  Students consider their classmates’ arguments before voting as a group to make a decision whether bald eagles or wild turkeys would make a better symbol for a country in part 2 of this integrated lesson plan.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students use information from the book, The Bald Eagle by Norman Pearl, to compare the look and behavior of bald eagles and wild turkeys.  They explore early debates over the bald eagle as our national symbol as a way to differentiate fact from opinion in part 1 of this integrated lesson plan.

Type: Lesson Plan

• Students will review the five senses and related body parts and then develop symbols that represent the senses. Students will then apply their understanding of symbols to study important US symbols in this integrated lesson plan.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will review the five senses and related body parts and then develop symbols that represent the senses. Students will then apply their understanding of symbols to study important symbols of the state of Florida in this integrated lesson plan.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will revisit the Everglades discussing the similarities and differences between some of the animals that were presented in lesson one. They will continue to color and build their Everglades class book. Students will draw and write the similarities and differences using a Comparing Everglades Animals worksheet. Everglades Animals is lesson 2 out of 3.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will be introduced to the Everglades, learning about this special place for plants and animals that is unlike anywhere else on Earth. They will watch a presentation on some of the animals that live in the Everglades and start working on their Everglades Class Book.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson students will demonstrate an understanding of characteristics of real and make-believe animals, they will sort animals according to characteristics, and they will complete a drawing of a make-believe animal home in a real-world habitat.

Type: Lesson Plan

This unit opens with a field trip to the pumpkin patch. In this project-based learning experience students will use their five senses to discover the world around them. Students will complete a KWL chart, pumpkin chart, and have group discussions. Individually students will use their five senses to describe the taste, touch, smell, look, and sound of different objects. As teams, students will create a poster to present their findings.

Type: Lesson Plan

This unit opens with a walking field trip to a local community pond. In this Project-Based Learning experience students explore their local environment and describe the different habitats for plants and animals. The class will create a KWL Chart and Word Web for habitats. Individually, students will write an informative report about a chosen animal and its habitat. As teams, students will sort and present animal/plant cards according to their given habitat/environment. Students will individually create and present a habitat using a diorama for a chosen plant/animal.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this MEA, students will help pick a flower that will be the focus of the Spring Festival.  They will practice counting pictures and representing the number of pictures with a written numeral.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will be asked to choose a new animal for a zoo. They will be asked to rank four animals from best to worst, based on popularity, food needs, danger to zookeepers, etc.

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

In this lesson, students are engaged in a science project where the local library is hosting a book writing contest. Students will brainstorm ideas, work in rotating center stations, complete checklists and create a nonfiction book about how plant and animals are alike and different featuring what they learned about plants and animals during the lesson.

Type: Lesson Plan

The five senses are essential to understanding the world around us. What body parts relate to each of the five senses? How do we use the five senses to discover new information? Students will encounter these questions and more as they explore the five senses and their corresponding body parts through observation and conversation.

Type: Lesson Plan

How do you know if an animal is real or make-believe? What characteristics and behaviors do real animals possess? How does the media portray animals with characteristics they do not have in real life? Students will encounter these questions as they explore the differences between real and make-believe animals. This lesson will help you to identify what characteristics and behaviors classify an animal as being real or make-believe.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will compare and contrast traits of real clown fish and Nemo, from the cartoon movie "Finding Nemo".

Type: Lesson Plan

This inquiry-based 5E lesson provides an initial look at categorizing items into 2 categories. Visuals of animals are used to begin the classifying/categorizing of animals and their babies. Students will practice categorizing in pairs and will be given the categories to use. They will then explain the placement of each item in the category. The teacher will ask guiding questions and facilitate the lesson to ensure comprehension of the material.

Type: Lesson Plan

How does our sense of smell help us process new information and develop understanding of the world around us? What body part correlates to our sense of smell? How do we use our sense of smell along with many other senses to process or recall information? Students will encounter these questions as they explore their sense of smell. This lesson will help students to identify how they use their sense of smell to help them understand the world around them.

Type: Lesson Plan

In teams, students will make decisions about how to select the best bakery based on various cupcake characteristics (e.g., taste, smell).

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 lesson, students will be animal investigators on a mission to learn all about pigs and wolves. With prompting and support from the teacher, students will read an informational text about pigs (Pigs by Robin Nelson) and wolves (Wolves by Michael Dahl). They will use information gathered to contribute to a class discussion about the characteristics of real pigs and wolves. Then, the teacher will read The Three Little Pigs (written by Anne Walters and Daniel Postgate) to the students and help them complete a Venn diagram comparing what they observed in The Three Little Pigs to what they know to be true of real pigs and wolves. In order to determine mastery of the concept, the students will complete a picture sort of Real and Imaginary Pigs and Wolves. At the end of the lesson, students will be able to explain how they make an informed decision about whether an animal is real or imaginary.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson focuses on different sound qualities and being able to distinguish the different qualities. This lesson explains how vibrations cause sound to be produced. How sound travels is also explored during this lesson. These concepts are explored while children solve an engineering design challenge through guided inquiry.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson provides students with opportunities to investigate the habitats of local plants and animals and explore some of the ways animals depend on plants and each other.

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 learn about their five senses. This lesson encourages students to explore their environment using their senses, first in an open-ended way, and then in a more reflective way. Using student sheets to record their observations, students work in small groups at five "Sense Stations," where they document what they smell, taste, see, hear, and feel. Next, students are asked to be "sense detectives" at the sense stations and to document their clues on their student sheets. Students use these clues to write a "Sense Mystery."

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will use Scholastic book order forms (or magazines) to sort animal pictures into two categories, real and make believe.

Type: Lesson Plan

Learn that some books portray plants with characteristics and behaviors they do not have in real life, in this interactive tutorial.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Learn how some books portray animals with characteristics and behaviors they do not have in real life with this interactive tutorial.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Learn about the sense of smell and be able to name the nose as the main part of the body that collects smells, in this interactive tutorial.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Learn about the sense of taste and be able to name the tongue as the main part of the body that collects tastes in this interactive tutorial.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Learn about the sense of hearing and be able to name the ear as the main part of the body that collects sounds, in this interactive tutorial.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Learn about the sense of sight and be able to name the eyes as the main part of the body that collects sights and images, in this interactive tutorial.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Learn about the sense of touch and be able to name the skin as the main part of the body that collects touch in this interactive tutorial.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

This is an accessible, easy-to-read book about our senses. It can be downloaded in Power Point, Impress, and Flash formats. For struggling or non-readers, it can be read aloud in a variety of voices. All of the books on the Tar Heel Reader site can be used with the Intellikeys keyboard and a custom overlay, a touch screen, and/or 1-3 switches. The text and background colors can be modified for students with visual impairments.

Type: Presentation/Slideshow

Website explaining when and how to start environmental education for kids. There are practical suggestions for teachers to incorporate environmental education into their curriculum.

Type: Professional Development

Biology lesson plans for a Living Things Unit of study.

Type: Resource Collection

This teaching idea describes a project for kindergarten students to create a nonfiction book. After studying animal adaptations, students learned about the adaptations of different local animals and created a nonfiction book with illustrations.

Type: Teaching Idea

This site features activity ideas on comparing plants and animals in different habitats. It also includes a virtual manipulative, black line masters for activity ideas, and a family newsletter to encourage family involvement.

Type: Teaching Idea

In this activity, the students will define invertebrate. The student will answer various questions about invertebrates that result in numeric answers and place the answers in numerical order.

Type: Teaching Idea

In this activity, students will be able to name warm- and cold-blooded animals through role play and song and demonstrate the behaviors used to dissipate excess body heat.

Type: Teaching Idea

In this activity, students will identify bird body parts and adaptations (feathers, wings, bill, tail) while creating paper finger puppets.

Type: Teaching Idea

In this activity, students will be able to name whale body parts (flipper, flukes, fins) and describe the function of each. In addition, they will role-play whale behavior.

Type: Teaching Idea

Students will compare and contrast different kinds of birds' bills and categorize pictures. After drawing the bills in each category, they will then compare the bill types with common household items.

Type: Teaching Idea

In this activity, the students will distinguish the differences between apes and monkeys by listening to different characteristics and coloring the corresponding animal.

Type: Teaching Idea

In this activity, students explore how schooling behavior is an adaptation for avoiding predators.

Type: Teaching Idea

In this activity, students will be able to describe the senses used by a harbor seal.

Type: Teaching Idea

Students discuss living and nonliving organisms, including plants and animals.

Type: Teaching Idea

In this activity, students develop logic skills by investigating various ways to sort by attribute. At the same time, they are exposed to principles of scientific classification.

Type: Teaching Idea

Observe animal habits and habitats using one of the many webcams broadcasting from zoos and aquariums around the United States and the world in this inquiry-based activity that focuses on observation logs, class discussion, questioning, and research.

Type: Teaching Idea

In this activity students will compare characteristics of birds with characteristics of animals from other classifications. They will list the characteristics that are unique to birds.

Type: Teaching Idea

This unit explores the five senses and their respective related body parts. It shows how observations of the natural world are made using our senses.

Type: Unit/Lesson Sequence

These lessons explore the characteristics and behavior of ladybugs, and to create their own paper model of a ladybug.

Type: Unit/Lesson Sequence

This unit shows students how to humanely handle pill bugs ("roly polies") and earthworms while observing their characteristics. Students will explore the types of conditions that each bug prefers to live in (eg., wet or dry, dark or light).

Type: Unit/Lesson Sequence

These lessons compare and contrast plants versus animals and seeds versus plants in regards to both appearance and behavior/function.

Type: Unit/Lesson Sequence

These lessons show children how the media portrays plants and animals with characteristics that they do not truly possess in reality.

Type: Unit/Lesson Sequence