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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

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. Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

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

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

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 motivate and guide student observations of animal and plant similarities, diversity, and appropriateness to live in different environments; to demonstrate that stories sometimes give plants and animals attributes that they don't really have.

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

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 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

This resource kit is designed to facilitate K-2 teachers in the development of a unit of instruction that is focused on diversity, adaptation, and classification of living things. Complete with background information for teachers as well as engaging activities and lessons for students, this kit contains exemplary materials includes recommendations for informational texts that align with standards for English language arts.

Type: Lesson Study Resource Kit

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

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

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