Habitat Unit: LAP 5 Polar Habitat and Adaptations Jillian Ceballos

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1 Habitat Unit: LAP 5 Polar Habitat and Adaptations Jillian Ceballos I. Content: In this two part lesson, students will listen to a non fiction informational text about the polar habitat to learn more about how the animals live in such cold temperatures. They will use information from the text and their background knowledge to determine how the polar habitat provides the basic survival needs to its inhabitants. Then, students will explore how polar animals adapt to their environment through a blubber and fur glove experiment. Students will try on different gloves with materials to represent blubber and fur, and observe which gloves keep their hand the warmest in and outside of ice water to make inferences about how a polar bear stays warm. II. Learning Goals Students will listen to a non fiction, informational text Students will be able to use their prior knowledge of the polar habitat to inform their thinking Students will determine how a polar habitat provides food, water, shelter and air to its inhabitants Students will be able to follow the scientific method by hypothesizing, observing, and making conclusions about the experiment Students will be able to make inferences about a polar bear adapts to the cold Students will be able to explain their thinking using support from the text and experiment. Students will be able to work together in their science groups and successfully exemplify the small group rules agreed upon by the class III. Rationale This two part lesson allows students to investigate the polar habitat, our final habitat study, and continue their study on how a habitat provides basic needs to the plants and animals that live there. By this point, students will have a strong understanding of the basic needs and be able to pull from their work with the previous two habitats to help them understand the polar habitat. Students will solidify their understanding of adaptations through an experiment, and should be able to articulate more fluently how polar animals adapt. This lesson enhances students literacy development, as they listen to and gain information from a non fiction text, and contributes to their development as scientists, as they go through the scientific method to conduct an experiment in order to make conclusions and inferences. IV. Assessments

2 Informal. Class discussion/polar Habitat Chart. After the read aloud, students will discuss as a whole class what they learned from the text. They will give specific examples of how the polar habitat provides food, water, shelter and air as well as anything else they learned and I will record their responses on a chart. Formal. Experiment worksheet. This worksheet will provide space for students to write out their hypotheses, observations, and conclusions about the experiment. I will know students can correctly conduct an experiment by their ability to make relevant hypotheses, properly observe what happens and how their hand feels during the experiment, and make accurate conclusions about what happened. Formal. Conclusion. Students will discuss with their groups and then independently write how polar animals adapt to the cold. I will know students have understood if they can correctly reference the experiment and use the terms blubber and fur in their explanation, stating that blubber keeps a polar animal warm in the water and fur keeps them cold on land. I will be looking to see if students can infer about a polar bear noting that they have blubber and fur because they live on land but also swim in the ocean. V. Personalization and equity This lesson will provide many opportunities for all learners to access and interact with the content. All of the learning domains will be met: speaking (whole class discussions, small group (3 4 students) turn and talks), listening (read aloud), writing (experiment worksheet hypotheses, observations, conclusions, exit slip) and reading (following directions on the worksheet). All four of these domains provide a well rounded learning environment for ELL students, as they have the opportunity to practice in all areas. The ELL students in my class are developing CALP language, so I will continue to emphasize use of vocabulary such as: hypothesis, observe, experiment, conclude, adapt and habitat. The use of this academic vocabulary in this lesson will encourage them to become fluent academic speakers. The experiment will provide hands on learning with small groups in a low stakes environment, lowering the effective filter and ensuring that all students can and will participate. VI. Activity description and agenda Time Activity Rationale [Day 1] 10 Read Aloud Students will listen to a non fiction text to learn about the polar habitat and some of the animals that live there The read aloud is meant to give students information about the polar habitat, and help them practice gaining information from a non fiction text.

3 10 [Day 2] Class discussion/polar Habitat Chart As a whole class, students will discuss what they learned from the text, particularly how the polar habitat provides food, water, shelter, and air and how polar animals adapt Blubber/fur glove experiment Students will work in their science groups to complete the experiment. Each student will follow the scientific method using the worksheet in their science notebooks. Discuss findings as a class. Record on chart. Conclusions After discussing findings as a class, students will talk with their groups and answer: How do polar animals adapt to their cold habitat? Share thoughts as a class. This class discussion will show me what they have learned from the text. It will allow students to demonstrate their prior knowledge as well. The chart will be created to show what we learned as a class and later be used as a resource to refer back to. This experiment will show students materials that keep themselves warm in and above water (in the ocean and on land), so they can begin to think about the different ways in which polar animals adapt to stay warm. Students will practice the scientific method, outlined in their worksheet. This conclusion is important for me to see what they took away from the experiment. At this point, they should have a much more solid understanding of adaptations so I will be looking to see if they can articulate polar adaptations well, using specific examples from the experiment. b) I am expecting my students to be very excited about the experiment, but it is very procedural and I will need them to focus so they can make accurate and thoughtful observations. I have decided to do the experiment together as a class do one step at a time and move on together. First we will do each glove outside of the water so they don t get wet and cold, then we will do all of the gloves in the water. I will model each time how to put their hand in the glove and then in the water, because I know their first instinct will be wanting to dunk it in quickly and try on all of the gloves at the same time. VII. Standards MA Frameworks Characteristics of Living Things 1: Recognize that animals (including humans) and plants are living things that grow, reproduce, and need food, air, and water.

4 Living Things and their Environment 1: Identify the ways in which an organism s habitat provides for its basic needs (plants require air, water, nutrients, and light; animals require food, water, air, and shelter). Common Core Standards CCSS.ELA Literacy.W.2.8 Recall information from experiences or gather information from provided sources to answer a question. CCSS.ELA Literacy.SL.2.1 Participate in collaborative conversations with diverse partners, peers and adults in small and larger groups. CCSS.ELA Literacy.SL.2.1a Follow agreed upon rules for discussions (e.g., gaining the floor in respectful ways, listening to others with care, speaking one at a time about the topics and texts under discussion). CCSS.ELA Literacy.SL.2.2 Recount or describe key ideas or details from a text read aloud or information presented orally or through other media. VIII. Reflection I was so excited by the way this lesson turned out. The first day showed that my students can really gain a lot of information from a non fiction text, which is something we have been working on all year. I noticed in this lesson that they weren t just repeating information they heard, they were synthesizing it and relating it to what they already knew to make sense of it. For example, the text didn t state exactly how polar animals get water, but when we talked about it as a class, many students thought that the snow or ice could be a water source because they know it is plentiful in the polar habitat and that when it melts it can become water (Fig. 1). When discussing shelter, they were able to make their own inferences too: one student suggested that ice caves could be shelter. Another student said the ocean is shelter for some animals. This showed me that they understood the main characteristics of the polar habitat as well as the basic survival needs and used what they knew to formulate ideas. The text I read also discussed endangered polar animals, which was an added element I wasn t expecting to incorporate in the unit, but my students really reacted to it. They were saddened and riled up to think about how animals can become endangered. This was a great surprise because suddenly what they were learning about become more real and tangible. The second day was even more exciting as I watched my students become expert scientists. It was clear by the end of the experiment that my students had a solid understanding of adaptations, and they all immediately made inferences about polar bears adaptations after the experiment. It has been really interesting to see their development over

5 the course of the unit, especially with their understanding of adaptations. They didn t need any prompting or push from me to get them on the right track. They were all focused and engaged in the experiment and automatically began to make their own connections and inferences. During the experiment, I observed many students thinking about the materials in front of them and identifying them as blubber and fur. One student, Ryan, said to me I m closing my eyes and pretending I m a polar bear. Originally, I thought I would need to lead them to think about how the materials represent polar bears and their adaptations, but they were already doing it themselves. One unexpected skill that came out of this unit was my students ability to observe in detail. It wasn t initially one of my unit goals, but with each lesson, my students have improved and are now drawing detailed pictures and labeling them on their own. I focused so much on hypothesizing and concluding that I didn t really understand how important the observations were. However, they were truly doing the work of scientists as they drew a detailed, labeled diagram of our experiment set up (Fig. 3). Some students even drew a labeled picture to help them explain their thinking at the end of the experiment (Fig. 4). After the experiment, my students definitely understood how polar animals adapt to the cold climate, and without my prompting knew exactly what the cotton balls and crisco were supposed to be. They understood the uses and benefit of each adaptation: On land polar bears fur keeps them warm in the water their fur can t keep them warm because in water their fur starts to drop and there blubber keeps them warm in the water (Fig 5). I can tell this student was using what we did in the experiment to help him understand, and I love how he pointed out that the fur gets wet, so the polar bear needs blubber too. One of my ELL and LD students, Nyeema, struggles a lot with reading and writing and it usually slows her down when we do class activities. I was so proud of the work she produced throughout the whole experiment, but especially in her response at the end. She used complete sentences and clearly got her point across: The blubber keeps it warm in the water and the fur keeps it warm on land (Fig. 6). Her spelling isn t perfect but I can tell she was using her resources to use the correct spelling for blubber and fur (something many other students didn t do!). Her worksheet shows that she can still access the information and be an active participant despite her reading and writing struggles.