ENGAGE: Opening Activity – Access Prior Learning / Stimulate Interest/ Identify
Preconceptions
The teacher will start by opening a powerpoint that has a picture of a bear, monkey, and a
lizard. They will tell the students to talk with a partner and choose one of the three
animals to have as a pet to live in their house. Students should explain why they chose
that pet.
After about two minutes, the teacher will call on 3-5 student pairs to have them explain
what animal they chose to have and why.
o As students explain their reasoning, the teacher will ask questions like “Where
would it live?”, “What would you feed it?”, “How would you make sure it stays
healthy/has enough room to move around?” etc. (The point of this opening
activity is to get the students thinking about how different animals need to have
different foods and environments in order to thrive). The teacher may also want to
use the internet to look up what these three animals need to live as a class if the
students need further support.
After 3-5 students have shared out and the class discussion has occurred, the teacher will
explain that out of the three animals on the board, really only a lizard would be able to
live in our community and in their house as a pet because our community is most similar
to the habitat of a lizard. The teacher will ask the students to turn and talk to their partner
again to make comparisons about what a lizard needs to survive and what our community
and homes already have to offer a lizard.
After, the teacher will have students start to think of reasons why a bear would not have
enough room to run around/explore, they would not have sufficient animals to prey on,
they would not have a place to hibernate, etc. Students will also come to the conclusion
that a monkey would also not have enough trees to hang on and live in, there is not an
adequate food supply in this area for monkeys, etc.
Next, The teacher will introduce the project that students will be working towards during
this habitat unit of study. For this project, students will be able to work with a partner, if
they so desire, select an animal, and design a habitat that they will best survive in. In
order to aid students in their research and discovery, the class will create a list of
important criteria each animal needs to survive in their habitat.
Teachers and students will work together in creating a list of possible areas they should
explore for each animal and their habitat. This anchor chart will help students throughout
the week to guide them in what they should be looking for. The teacher will guide
students to include these elements.
The list the students create with the teachers will be the criteria they will be graded off of
in their research and presentation. The criteria will be based off how well they explain the
reason being the choice they made (Ex. From a range of 1-3 points, 1 point explains with
minimal information, 2 points includes bare minimum and some information, 3 points
explains with great detail.) The list of student created criteria to be included in each
project should be:
o Climate
Temperature
Weather
Humidity
Seasons
o Predator vs. Prey relationships
o Food and Water Sources
o Landscape
Amount/ size of land animal needs
What kind of plants, if any, should be in the habitat
Hunting territory
