Animals and their Environment

Introduction

Science Lesson

Topic: Adaptation

4th grade classroom ​​​​​

  • Read the objective to the class and explain what the students will be learning.

  • Tell the students that they will be learning about adaptation today and what it means for an animal to adapt to its environment.

  • Open up the powerpoint and show students the definition of the word “adaptation”.

  • Break down the definition into parts and have a discussion about what it means when the parts are put together to create a full definition.  

  • Then, answer the question on the slide about human adaptation as a class.

  • Show students pictures of five specific examples of animals in their natural habitat.

  • After every picture, have students talk to their groups or with a partner to discuss what adaptations are necessary for that particular animal to survive in that climate.

  • Ask students to offer up their ideas and then provide examples for features the animals have that make them well-suited to their environments.

  • Once the examples are complete, tell students that they will now be completing an interesting activity.

Task

  • The central focus for this learning segment is to teach students about how animals adapt to their environment, as well as have students create an animal to fit specific environmental conditions. Students will explore four different environments to develop a better understanding of the diversity in traits. This lesson will demonstrate the concept of adaptability and what is necessary for an animal to be able to adapt to a certain environment.

Process

  • Explain that the class is going to pretend it is the year 3000 and that each of the students are scientists.

  • In the future, human beings have discovered a way to create their own animals based on whatever environment they want to place the animal.

  • As scientists, the students are in charge of working in groups to create their own animal from scratch and to give it features that will allow for it to survive in the environment they are assigned.

  • Before they start that task, it is important for them to do more research, just like what scientists would do.

  • Split students into four groups and provide each group with a virtual reality device based on the environment they are assigned.

  • Have each group member take turns exploring their habitat using the VR device.

  • Then, have them write a few sentences on a classroom Google document describing their experience and what they learned about their environment using examples from their VR experiment. This way, other students can also read their classmates’ written work.  

  • Once they have completed that portion of the activity, assign each group a book to read among themselves about their specific environment.

  • After they finish reading their books, give each group a chart paper and tell them to create an animal by considering these questions:

    • What does it eat?

    • How will it catch/get food and water?

    • How will it keep warm/cool

    • Where will it shelter?

    • How will it protect/defend itself from attackers?

  • Their task is to draw an animal that will survive in the given environment and to also write a few sentences as a group underneath the drawing to explain what features their animal has and why those features will help it survive.

Evaluation

  • Informal

    • Walk around and observe group conversations as students work on reading their books and completing their activity. Listen to the discussions and identify when students are struggling or confused.    

  • Formal

    • Once the activity is complete, look at student work and analyze the final product. Check to see if the illustration portrays all the features that the students mention and whether the features they use are appropriate for the environment. Also, read through the written student responses to analyze whether they addressed the questions they were supposed to consider as they created their animals.   

Conclusion

  • Once they have completed all the parts of their activity, students will hang up their anchor charts to share with their classmates.

  • Then, each student will walk around to look at and read through the anchor charts completed by their classmates to obtain knowledge on other environments.

  • The lesson will end with a final review of the concept of adaptation and a class discussion about what each group learned.

Credits