The Environment

PET Project

Arlington Elementary

Organizer

What is my role in maintaining and improving the environment?

Essential Questions:

1. What is an ecosystem (habitats, populations)?

2. How does the life cycle of different animals compare and contrast to humans?

3. How do environments/habitats and organisms affect each other (adaptation, endangered, extinct)?

4. How do all the components of the ecosystem fit together (show the interdependence)?

5. Does advancement in technology really improve the quality of life on this planet, or just create more environmental challenges? (Primary covers this in the following ecology unit.)

Primary Academic Expectations/Demonstrators

1.16 – Students use computers and other kinds of technology to collect, organize, and communicate information and ideas.

Demonstrators: Use a variety of technologies in various ways; express information and ideas using technology

2.1 – Students understand scientific ways of thinking and working and use those methods to solve real-life problems.

Demonstrators: Observe and communicate properties of objects or organisms using all senses; record and represent data in an organized form; identify variables that cause or influence an environment

2.3 – Students identify and analyze systems and the ways their components work together of affect each other.

Demonstrators: Identify components of a system; create a system

2.6 – Students understand how living and nonliving things change over time and the factors that influence the changes.

Demonstrators: Describe the sequence of steps in change process; investigate variables that influence change over time .

Secondary Academic Expectations/Demonstrators

1.1 – Students use reference tools such as dictionaries, almanacs, encyclopedias, and computer reference programs and research tools such as interviews and surveys to find the information they need to meet specific demands, explore interests, or solve specific problems.

Demonstrators: Identify and use print and non-print resources to obtain information; use research tools to access and synthesize information

1.3 – Students make sense of the various things they observe.

Demonstrators: Use all the senses to explore environments; draw inferences and defend conclusions based upon a set of observations

1.12 – Students speak using appropriate forms, conventions, and styles to communicate ideas and information to different audiences for different purposes.

Demonstrators: Practice formal presentation for a specific audience and purpose; refine formal presentations for a variety of audiences and purposes

2.5 – Students understand that under certain conditions nature tends to remain the same or move toward a balance.

Demonstrators: Investigate and describe steady state systems and components of a system that work together to achieve constancy; investigate factors that may disrupt constancy and describe their effects in a steady state system .

2.11 – Students understand mathematical change concepts and use them appropriately and accurately.

Demonstrators: Observe patterns of change in everyday life and discuss causes and effects; extend and create patterns and generalize structures from patterns

5.4 – Students use a decision-making process to make informed decisions among options.

Demonstrators: Make a decision from given options; analyze and prioritize alternatives; select and defend a position

5.5 – Students use problem-solving processes to develop solutions to relatively complex problems.

Demonstrators: Gather and organize information on a problem; identify alternative solutions to a problem

Culminating Performance

Upper Primary Culminating Performance:

As a demonstration of your research and learning about organisms, habitats, and the ecosystem, you will design and deliver a presentation for Arlington students and staff.

The presentation must:

1. include a minimum of three of the following:

poem, play, song, chart, table, graph, diagram, poster, demonstration, display, props, slide show, others with approval by the teacher;

2. include at least two of the following computer software applications to depict data and/or information:

Excel, Inspiration, PowerPoint, others with approval by the teacher;

3. include accurate information about your organism, its habitat, its life cycle, its place in the food chain, and any other relevant information.

Written documentation must be provided prior to your presentation. Your presentation will be evaluated by the Habitat Performance Criteria.

Habitat Performance Criteria

CRITERIA

ABUNDANT HABITAT

STABLE HABITAT

ENDANGERED HABITAT

TECHNOLOGY USE

*The student gathered information from a wide variety of resources.

*The student displayed and explained data/information using 2 or more software applications.

(Excel, Inspiration,
PowerPoint, other)

*The student gathered information from a variety of resources.

*The student displayed data/information using 2 software applications.

(Excel, Inspiration,
PowerPoint, other)

*The student gathered information from a resource.

*The student displayed data/information using less than 2 software
applications.

(Excel, Inspiration,
PowerPoint, other)

SCIENTIFIC SKILLS

*The student designs and delivers an understandable and informative presentation using more than 3 of the modes of communication.

(poem, play, song, chart, table, graph, diagram, poster, demonstration, display, props, slide show, others)

*The student presentation includes all required components in addition to other relevant information.

(organism, its habitat, its life cycle, its place in the food chain)

*The student designs and delivers an understandable and informative presentation using 3 of the modes of communication.

(poem, play, song, chart, table, graph, diagram, poster, demonstration, display, props, slide show, others)

*The student presentation includes all required components.

(organism, its habitat, its life cycle, its place in the food chain)

*The student designs and delivers a presentation using less than 3 of the modes of communication.

(poem, play, song, chart, table, graph, diagram, poster, demonstration, display, props, slide show, others)

*The student presentation includes some of the required components or contains errors.

(organism, its habitat, its life cycle, its place in the food chain)

The Environment

Primary Academic Expectations/Demonstrators

Secondary Academic Expectations/Demonstrators

Culminating Performance

Habitat Performance Criteria

4-5: Virtual Tour - The Perfect Environment – show the different systems on the earth

Intermediate

Content Knowledge

Primary

Intermediate

Skills/Procedures

Primary

Intermediate

Instructional Sequence

Extension Activities

Primary Timeline

2. Ecosystem

Intermediate Timeline

Materials

Resources