1. MST Inquiry Unit: Plants and Animals Kelly Hotaling & Vickie Terekhova

2. Lesson 1: What’s for Dinner?
Bloom’s Taxonomy: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Synthesis
Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences: Visual and Naturalistic
Lesson 2: How Senses Help Animals Survive
Bloom’s Taxonomy: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application
Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences Visual, Naturalistic, Verbal-linguistic

3. Lesson 1: What’s for Dinner?

4. Process Skills: LE 5.1c LE 5.2a – Describing how food supplies the energy and materials necessary for growth and repair of living organisms.
Inquiry Skills: LE 5.1d,e LE 6.1a,b – Classifying populations of organisms as producers, consumers, or decomposers by the role they serve in the ecosystem.
NYC Science Scope & Sequence:
Content Standards: Connections and Representations
Process Standards: Reasoning and Proof
NCTM Math Skills:
Technology Operations and Concepts: a) Understand and use technology systems.
Creativity and Innovation: a) Apply existing knowledge to generate new ideas, products, or processes.
ISTE NETs Standards for Literate Students:

5. Objectives Students will discuss how food webs and food chains work.
Students will discuss the relationship between producers, consumers, and decomposers in a food chain.
Students will utilize knowledge of organism classifications and food webs/chains in a game as well as in creating their own food web.

6. Procedures
Ask motivational question: “What did you eat for dinner last night?”
Break down responses into individual ingredients, and write them on the board.
Begin categorizing the ingredients into producers and consumers, asking questions such as “Which of these foods came from plants?” and “Which of these foods came from animals?”
Introduce the idea of producers as plants and consumers as animals.
Continue to break down categories further and introduce vocabulary words such as herbivore, carnivore, and omnivore.
Read the book, Who Eats What? by Patricia Lauber.
Discuss the relationship between producers, consumers, and decomposers in a food chain.
Define food webs and food chains.
Individually, students can practice what they have learned through an online game: dchain/foodchain.htm
Students will complete worksheets and construct their own food webs based on what they ate for dinner the night before.

7. Assessment
Students will construct their own food web based on what they ate for dinner the night before.

8. Scavenger Hunt Questions
1. Describe the difference between a food web and a food chain.
2. Name 2 organisms that are producers.
3. Name 2 organisms that are consumers.
4. Name 2 organisms that are decomposers.
5. What does a food chain start with?
6. What happens when an organism dies?
7. How do plants get their food?
8. What travels through a food chain or web?
9. Describe what would happen if one link of a food chain were to die off.

9. Lesson 2: How Senses Help Animals Survive

10. Process Skills: Observe, identify, and communicate cause-and-effect relationships, and Make predictions based on prior experiences and/or information.
Inquiry Skills: Communicating and giving oral and written explanations or graphic representations of observations.
NYC Science Scope & Sequence:
Content Standards: Connections and Representations
Process Standards: Reasoning and Proof
NCTM Math Skills:
Technology Operations and Concepts: Select and use applications effectively and productively.
Communication and Collaboration Communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats.
ISTE NETs Standards for Literate Students:

11. Objectives
Students will identify the five senses which help animals survive.
Students will discuss how various animals use their senses for survival.
Students will demonstrate how their own senses help them survive.

12. Procedures
Explain how animals are equipped with senses that help them survive.
Read Me and My Senses by Joan Sweeney.
Review 5 senses in a hands-on activity (mystery bag for sense of touch, blindfold for sense of smell, taste and sound).
Discuss how these senses help us understand more about the environment around us.
Present students with pictures of different kinds of environments that animals live in (ocean, rainforest, desert, forest, etc.).
Explain to students that the environment that an animal lives in helps that animal better adapt and have good use of their senses.
Relate this information to animals. Read animal senses chart as a class:
Show various pictures of animals and ask students to identify each of the animals most used and their primary sense.
Students will write a paragraph on how their senses would help them survive in the wild.

13. Assessment
“Lion”
One of the Lion's adaptations is their golden brown fur, it helps them blend into their surroundings on the plains. Their growl warns other males to keep away from their cubs and the lioness. A lion has an acute sense of smell which allows them to spot their prey from far distances. They use their claws to rip and tear prey's flesh and meat. They have good eye sight for hunting at night because they have a reflective lens inside of their eyes.

14. Filamentality
Access to all necessary websites for this unit via the Unit Filamentality Page
imalsva.html