Grade 4 : Standard 5 - Biodiversity and Change

Conceptual Strand 5

A rich variety of complex organisms have developed in response to a continually changing environment.

Guiding Question 5

How does natural selection explain how organisms have changed over time?

Grade Level Expectations

Checks for Understanding

State Performance Indicators

GLE 0407.5.1 Analyze physical and behavioral adaptations that enable organisms to survive in their environment.

GLE 0407.5.2 Describe how environmental changes caused the extinction of various plant and animal species.

0407.5.1 Classify animals according to their physical adaptations for obtaining food, oxygen, and surviving within a particular environment.

0407.5.2 Describe how animal behaviors such as migration, defense, means of locomotion, and hibernation enable them to survive in an environment.

0407.5.3 Investigate tropisms that plants exhibit in response to changes in their environment.

0407.5.4 Gather fossil information to draw conclusions about organisms that exist today.

0407.5.5 Analyze the common causes of extinction and explain how human actions sometimes result in the extinction of a species.

SPI 0407.5.1 Determine how a physical or behavioral adaptation can enhance the chances of survival.

SPI 0407.5.2 Infer the possible reasons why a species became endangered or extinct.

 

 

Grouping Plants

  1. Read TCAP Coach Lesson 7 page 57 "Classifying Plants"
  2. Draw a chart with different types of vascular and nonvascular plants.

    Vascular have a system that is intricate and the plant can move water to distribute it to the whole plant. Vascular plants are able to grow bigger due to this ability.
    Ex: Trees, flowers

    Nonvascular plants are usually small plants that are close to the ground. They do not have a very complex water distribution and for this reason cannot support large growth.
    Ex: moss

    Vascular Plants Nonvascular
    Seeds Non-Seeds
    (spores)    		 Complex nonvascular plants Simple nonvascular plants
    evergreens ferns mosses algae
    flowering plants club mosses liverwort  
    bushes horsetails hornworts  

 

Have student identify the following:

moss

bushes

Which is vascular? Which is nonvascular?
Have student identify the following:

ferns

evergreens

trees

Name two vascular plants. Name one nonvascular plant.

3.  Website with photos of many types of plants http://www.cas.vanderbilt.edu/bioimages/frame.htm The Non-seed plant groups has the nonvascular plants.

4.  Quia Quiz http://www.quia.com/pop/47449.html (Excellent for this lesson)

Grouping  Animals

  1. Read TCAP Coach Lesson 7 page 58 "Classifying Animals"
  2. Make chart similar to one on page 58.
    Discuss characteristics each has in common.
     
  Mammals Reptiles Amphibians Fish Birds
body covering fur or hair scales moist without scales most are covered with scales feathers
body temperature warm blooded cold blooded cold blooded cold blooded warm blooded
breathing lungs lungs gills then lungs gills lungs
babies birth young develop inside the mother's body

produce milk to feed their young

 most lay soft-shelled eggs lay jelly-like eggs most lay eggs eggs
where live most live on land live mainly on land live part of their lives in water and part on land live entirely in water land
  1. Online Activity Classifying Critters http://www.hhmi.org/coolscience/forkids/critters/index.html
  2. Animals of the World http://www.kidscom.com/games/animal/animal.html
  3. PowerPoint on Animal Classification http://jc-schools.net/write/sci/Classification_files/frame.htm
  4. BrainPop
  5. Classifying Animals Matching http://www.quia.com/cc/269580.html (Uses words only)
  6. Quiz "What am I?" http://www.quia.com/pop/44945.html (Pictures with drop down list with mammal, reptile, etc.)

Adaptations

  1. Read TCAP Coach Lesson 8
  2. Surviving winter -  migrate, hibernate, and dormant
  3. United Streaming Animal Adaptations (24:00)
  4. BrainPop Jr. Animals http://www.brainpopjr.com/science/animals/
  5. Bulletin Board Pictures (Animal Adaptations to discuss and group)

  6. Take it to Your Seat (EMC 5003)

Animal Adaptations

Birds

 

Animal Adaptations (Science and Animals) page 306-309

Mammals

Turtles

  1. Online Activities

  2. PowerPoints

Thriving, Threatened, Endangered, or Extinct

  1. Vocabulary Words
thriving doing well
threatened population not low enough to be in immediate danger, yet if problems are not resolved will become endangered
endangered in immediate danger of being extinct
extinct no longer living
  1. PowerPoints
  2. Read TCAP Coach Lesson 10 pages 72-74
  3. Brain Pop Extinction http://www.brainpop.com/science/ourfragileenvironment/extinction/

  4. Have students make a poster using the opaque projector. Students must draw pictures of thriving, threatened, endangered, and extinct animals.

    Thriving, Threatened, Endangered, & Extinct Animals Posters

    Resources for Making Posters

    Endangered Species C O L O R I N G Book "Save Our Species" http://www.epa.gov/espp/coloring/

    List of thriving animals
    List of threatened animals http://www.dpiw.tas.gov.au/inter.nsf/WebPages/SJON-58K8WK?open

    • humpback whale
    • southern elephant seal
    • common wombat
    • loggerhead turtle

    List of endangered animals http://www.earthsendangered.com/
    Pictures of Endangered Animals http://www.enchantedlearning.com/painting/endangered.shtml

    • jaguar
    • cheetah
    • leopard
    • gray wolf
    • cougar
    • ocelot
    • Asiatic lion
    • chimpanzee
    • brown bear
    • blue whale
    • tiger
    • giant panda
    • red wolf
    • Asian elephant
    • mantled howler monkey
    • giant otter

    List of extinct animals http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_extinct_animals
    Pictures of Extinct Animals http://www.enchantedlearning.com/coloring/extinct.shtml

    • dinosaurs
    • pterosaurs
    • plesiosaurs
    • ichthyosaurs
    • giant beaver
    • wooly mammoth
    • Eastern woodland bison

Example Poster

Thriving -  White Tailed Deer

 Threatened - Wombat
Endangered - Jaguar

 

 Extinct - Wooly Mammoth
  1. Have students play online activities while one at a time students draw animals for their charts.

Man-Made Causes of Extinction

  1. Review vocabulary words
  2. Lesson Plan http://sftrc.cas.psu.edu/pdfs/Threatened,%20Endan.pdf
  3. United Streaming - Students continue drawing posters, while others view videos.
  4. Have students create a chart similar to the one below:

Major Man Made Causes of Extinction

Taking Animals for Profit

Hunting and Trapping

 

Over harvesting

Destruction of Habitat

 

Fossils

  1. Brain Pop http://www.brainpop.com/science/diversityoflife/fossils/
  2. Game - Put skeleton together to form animal http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/beasts/build/jigsaw.html
  3. TCAP Coach Lesson 11 pages 75-78

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Resources

http://www.lakeorion.k12.mi.us/District/Departments/MooseTree/pdfs/Grade1AnimalConsolidated.swf