VERTEBRATES
Mini-Unit Goals
In my mini-unit, I will be focusing on warm-blooded vertebrates (birds and mammals). The goals of my mini-unit are as follows. The student will be able to:
Describe the main characteristics of warm-blooded vertebrate animals.
Compare and contrast the two different groups of warm-blooded vertebrate animals by looking at external, reproductive, and growth characteristics.
National Science Education Standards
5-8 Life Science Content Standard C: As a result of their activities in grades 5-8, all students should develop an understanding of structure and function in living systems, reproduction and heredity, regulation and behavior, populations and ecosystems, and diversity and adaptations of organisms.
5-8 Inquiry Content Standard A: As a result of their activities in grades 5-8, all students should develop the abilities necessary to do scientific inquiry and an understanding about scientific inquiry.
Pennsylvania Standards
3.3.4.A. Pennsylvania’s public schools shall teach, challenge, and support every student to realize his or her maximum potential and to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to know the similarities and differences of living things.
Identify life processes of living things (e.g. growth, digestion, react to environment).
Know that some organisms have similar external characteristics (e.g. anatomical characteristics; appendages, type of covering, body segments) and that similarities and differences are related to environmental habitat.
Describe basic needs of plants and animals.
3.2.7.C. Pennsylvania’s public schools shall teach, challenge, and support every student to realize his or her maximum potential and to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to recognize and use the elements of scientific inquiry to solve problems.
Content - Vertebrates
Vertebrates, in the simplest definition, are animals with backbones. A vertebrate animal gets its shape from an endoskeleton, which is a skeleton that is inside its body. The skeleton of a vertebrate always includes a backbone. In most cases, the backbone is made of bone. However, in sea-dwelling vertebrates, such as sharks, their backbone is made of cartilage. Each vertebrate animal has a different skeletal make-up based on their size and the way they live. Yet all vertebrates have a skull that contains the brain and sense organs and two pairs of limbs. Another characteristic of vertebrates is that they have internal organs. Each organ within a vertebrate has a specific job to do, and when these organs are grouped together, they form a body system (such as the digestive, circulatory, and reproductive system).
The vertebrates make up about 3% of the animal species, and the vertebrate family includes more than 40,000 species. These species are divided into five main groups: fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. Mammals and birds are warm-blooded, meaning that they generate heat within their body so they can withstand cold conditions. Fish, reptiles, and amphibians are cold-blooded, meaning that they cannot regulate their body temperature (their body temperatures change with their surroundings).
Warm-blooded Vertebrates
Birds – Birds live on land, in trees, and on water. Instead of having front legs, birds have wings and hollow bones, which help them fly. But some do not fly, such as penguins. Their bodies are covered with feathers, which help it to fly or to keep warm. They lay hard-shelled eggs, and the bird sits on them to keep them warm until they hatch. Then the bird feeds and cares for their young.
There are 8,500 different kinds of birds. They differ by their beaks (adapted for a certain type of food) and their legs and feet (to help them perch on branches, wade in water, swim, run, or grab prey).
Mammals – Some characteristics of mammals include warm-bloodedness, hair or fur, lungs, and four limbs. Fur or hair is used to keep the animal warm in cold temperatures (if a mammal has no hair, fat is used in the same way). Mammals give birth to only a few young, and the female nurses the young from her own milk (they all have mammary glands).
There are three main groups of mammals based on how their young develop. The first group lays their eggs, and there are very few of these mammals (monotremes). An example would be a duckbilled platypus. Another group has pouches, and they raise their young in the pouch, which is on the outside of their body (marsupials). An example would be kangaroos or koalas. The third group gives birth to fully-developed young. The young stays inside the female’s body until they are developed. After the baby is born, the baby nurses on the mother’s milk glands. Most mammals belong to this group (placentals). Examples are cats, dogs, and humans.
Mammals are also divided into categories depending on what they eat. Carnivores are meat eaters with sharp, pointed teeth for cutting and tearing (an example is a tiger). Herbivores are plant eaters with flat teeth to help them grind up plants (examples are sheep, cows, and rabbits). Omnivores eat both plants and animals and have pointed and flat teeth to eat both of these things. (examples are human beings, bears, skunks, and raccoons.)
Sources:
The Dorling Kindersley Children’s Illustrated Encyclopedia (2000)
The Dorling Kindersley Visual Encyclopedia (1994)
The Department of Systematic Biology (Vertebrate Zoology) Website: www.nmnh.si.edu/departments/vert.html
Science by Addison Wesley - Fifth grade science textbook (Bellefonte School District)
ENGAGE - SCIENCE TALK
Concept: The opening lesson to my mini-unit will be my science talk, and therefore, there will be no new concepts being taught.
Rationale: Doing a science talk before a unit is very important because teachers need to find out what the children already know and want to know in order to complete a successful unit. By doing this science talk and K.W.L. chart, I will be able to see any student prior knowledge and then use this knowledge to adjust my upcoming lessons (and make them more effective for this particular class).
Objectives: The students will be able to:
Identify at least one fact or piece of evidence that they know about warm-blooded vertebrates.
Identify at least one question about warm-blooded vertebrates that they would like to know more about.
Materials:
Teacher: K.W.L. handout, Dry erase board and markers
Students: Pencil/pen
Lesson Management:
This lesson should take about 40 minutes, but this depends on the students’ answers on their handouts. If the students know less than I thought, the lesson might be a little shorter.
For this lesson, the normal classroom rules will apply. I will remind the students to be respectful of everyone by listening to each other while they are sharing ideas. Also, I will tell the students that it is extremely important for them to work alone (I want to see their thoughts, not anyone else’s on their paper).
Beginning the Lesson: Time: 5 minutes
Next week we will be starting a small unit on warm-blooded vertebrate animals.
But first I want to find out what you know about warm-blooded vertebrates.
Have the paper passer hand out the K.W.L. worksheet.
Body of the Lesson: Time: 30 minutes
Give the students a minute to glance over the worksheet.
Then tell them that they will be working on this independently.
Tell them to fill out each section of the worksheet by answering the following questions:
(K) What do you know about warm-blooded vertebrates?
(W) What do you want to know about warm-blooded vertebrates?
Remind them that they should not worry if they do not know much about the subject. This is just to show me what you all know and what I need to cover in my lessons.
Give the students 5 to 10 minutes to fill out the K.W.L. chart.
While the students are working, I will put a K.W.L. chart on the dry erase board.
After the students are done, I will ask them to put their pencils down and to not add anything to their charts as we go over them.
Then I will ask the class what they already know about warm-blooded vertebrates (ask for volunteers).
I will put their answers up on the front board (make a class K.W.L. chart).
If a student gives an incorrect fact, ask if anyone disagrees with him/her. Then guide the students toward an idea that is correct (by asking, how can we make that statement correct?). Always thank the student for sharing!
After the students have shared what they already know, we will move on to what they want to know about warm-blooded vertebrates?
Once again, ask for volunteers and put their answers on the front board.
For each of these sections, facilitate any discussion that may arise (guide them by asking questions). Also, answer any questions that might arise.
End of the Lesson: Time: 5 minutes
Tell the students that we will be filling out the third section, “what did I learn,” after the end of next week.
Ask the students to pass their papers in to me so I can look at them.
Remind them that on Monday, we will begin learning about warm-blooded vertebrates.
Assessment: There will be no formal assessment for this lesson. I will be looking at the students’ K.W.L. charts to make sure they were able to give something they knew or wanted to know about warm-blooded vertebrates. As long as some kind of effort is shown on the handout and in class, I believe that the science talk was successful.
Explore – Birds
Concepts: The class of warm-blooded vertebrates that we will be discussing today is birds. For all the necessary information on this topic, see my unit Instructional Focus and the website reference at the end of this lesson.
Rationale: This lesson is based on the first group of warm-blooded vertebrates, birds. From what I have learned about inquiry, letting students discover and hypothesize on their own will help them to learn more about birds. In this lesson, students will be working in stations to hypothesize about characteristics of birds. Then at the end of the lesson, we will bring everyone together and discuss their hypotheses, judging if they are correct or not. This will let students discover things on their own and also have a more structured time to discuss what they found.
Objectives: The students will be able to :
Formulate hypotheses for the following questions:
Why are the vanes in two feathers different?
Why is the size of a feather important?
Why are bird bones special?
How do hollow bones help the bird?
Why do birds have different beaks?
Reflect on the lesson and state two or three things that they learned (on their K.W. L. chart).
Materials:
Teacher:
Dry erase board and markers
Five groups (with five students in each)
Worksheets for each station
Markers/crayons
Two feathers – contour (4) and down (4)
Magnifying glasses (4)
Chicken bones (at least 5)
Pictures of different bird beaks
Pictures of different birds
Students:
Pencil
K.W.L. chart
Science notebook
Lesson Management:
This lesson should take about 55 minutes to complete. The bulk of the lesson will come when the students are working in the stations. There should be an ample amount of time after that to discuss the students’ finding and hypotheses.
For this lesson, the students will be assigned to groups by myself (I will make up the groups). While going to each station, the students must keep their voices down and move in an orderly way (without chaos!). I will remind the students which station they will be moving onto next to avoid any confusion. Also, I will encourage the students to stay on task because the 10 minutes at each station will go very fast!
Beginning the Lesson: Time: 5 minutes
Today we are going to look at our first group of warm-blooded vertebrates.
But first we need to talk about what warm-blooded means.
Ask questions to guide the students’ thinking: Are humans warm-blooded? From what you know about humans, how could you define warm-blooded?
Aim for this answer: Warm-blooded animals maintain a constant body temperature. They can remain warm even when the outside temperature is cold.
Can you give any examples of warm-blooded vertebrates? (birds, mammals, and any animals within those two groups)
Today we are going to talk about one group of those warm-blooded vertebrates, birds.
To learn about birds, we are going to visit different stations where you can discover certain characteristics of birds. You will do this in groups of five.
Body of the Lesson: Time: 35 minutes
Put students into five groups of five. These will be their groups to work with for the rest of the week.
Place each group at a certain area of the room, where they will always meet.
Tell them that there are three stations they will be visiting. Each station is based on a different aspect of birds. (There will be six stations altogether, with each topic having two stations).
At each station, there will be a worksheet for you to work on. It may require you to answer questions, make a drawing, or even create a hypothesis.
Does anyone know what a hypothesis is?
Make sure the students know that a hypothesis is just an educated guess, but it has not been tested or proved yet. Therefore, their answers do not have to be completely correct, they are to make observations.
Assign groups their starting station. Remind them to follow all the directions at the station and work together.
You will have 10 minutes at each station. When I flicker the lights, you need to move onto the next station. Explain the station changing method to them (feathers to bones, bones to beaks, beaks to feathers, etc).
One-by-one have the groups go to their stations.
The stations will be based on the following:
Feathers – Students look at two types of feathers with a magnifying glass. They will hypothesize why each feather is different.
Ø Contour feathers cover the body of the bird and have a strong, hollow shaft for flying.
Ø Down feathers are small and lie under the contour feathers. These insulate the bird from the cold and protect it from sunburn.
Bones – Students discover that birds have hollow bones by looking at chicken bones and then hypothesize why their bones are like this (helps them fly).
Beaks – Students will look at several bird beaks and hypothesize why they look a certain way. Then after hypothesizing, they will look at real pictures of birds and figure out what kind of food they eat.
Allow for 10 minutes at each station. When the 10 minutes is over for each station, I will flick the lights on and off. This will signal the students to switch stations.
While the students are at the stations, I will circulate around the room and help them with any questions or concerns they have.
After each group has been through all the stations, I will re-group the class. Each group should go back to their assigned place in the room.
End of the Lesson: Time: 15 minutes
Once everyone is back in their seats, tell the class that we will be going over the worksheets they just did.
Move from the feather station, to the bones station, and finally to the beak station.
Go over each group’s findings for the stations. Lead a discussion by asking the questions on the station worksheets. Ask for any hypothesis that the groups came up with, and then discuss whether the hypothesis are possible or not.
After we review the station worksheets that they completed, I will see if anyone has any questions about birds in general.
Once all questions are answered, I will ask the students to take out their K.W.L. charts and write two or three things they learned today (as a way of reflecting on their learning).
Assessment: There will be no formal assessment for this lesson. However, as the groups work in the stations, I will observe and listen to the students to gage their understanding of birds. Also, the K.W.L. chart will be a more formal form of assessment, but this will not be addressed until the Explain portion of my unit (Lesson #4). Today, the students will just be adding to their “L” section by writing in some information that they learned during the lesson.
Reference: http://www.inhs.uiuc.edu/chf/pub/virtualbird/teacher/lesp11.html
Explore – Mammals
Concept: The class of warm-blooded vertebrate that we will be discussing today is mammals. To see all the necessary information for this topic, see my unit Instructional Focus.
Rationale: This lesson is based on the second group of warm-blooded vertebrates, mammals. From what I have learned about inquiry, by letting the students discover and hypothesize on their own, they will learn more about mammals. Also, by letting the students look at pictures of mammals and pick out characteristics, they will work harder than if I told them the characteristics straight out.
Objectives: The students will be able to:
List characteristics of the different mammals in the pictures.
Compare and contrast different mammals to find similar characteristics within that class of warm-blooded vertebrates.
Reflect on the lesson by stating two or three things they learned (on their K.W.L. chart)
Materials:
Teacher
Pictures of mammals
Dry erase board and markers
Is a Camel a Mammal? (Dr. Seuss) by Tish Rabe
Students
Pencil/pen
Science notebooks
Science textbook
K.W.L. chart
Lesson Management:
This lesson should take about 50 minutes to accomplish. Because the students will be discovering the characteristics in groups, it will take a little longer. Also, I will encourage the students to discuss their findings and this will take up time.
For this lesson, the normal classroom rules will apply. For the group work, each student will be placed in a group according to where they are seated in the classroom. I will remind the students that they must keep their voices down while they are working in groups.
Beginning the Lesson: Time: 5-7 minutes
Yesterday we talked about one class of warm-blooded vertebrates, birds.
Today, we are going to talk about the second class of warm-blooded vertebrates, mammals.
We are going to start by looking at some pictures of mammals.
Ask the student to get into their groups from the day before and to go to their assigned place. They should also bring their science notebooks.
Once everyone is ready, tell them that they will be receiving a few pictures of mammals. What they need to do is: look at each mammal, list some of their characteristics, and then try to find a pattern of characteristics that is similar in all the mammals.
Tell the students to look at physical and reproductive characteristics, what they eat, where they live, and any other interesting characteristics they have.
Tell the students that each group should assign a recorder to write down all their discoveries.
Ask if anyone has any questions about what they are supposed to do.
When all questions are answered, give each group a few mammal pictures.
Body of the Lesson: Time: 40 minutes
Give the students 10 to 15 minutes to work in their groups.
When the time is up, tell the students to move back into their own seats.
Ask for volunteers to share any characteristics they found in all their mammals.
As the students answer, I will write the characteristics up on the front board and encourage the students to write the characteristics in their notebook.
Once the students are done, we will go through the list as a class and try to figure out what is true of all mammals and what is true of most mammals. The students can look in their science textbooks if they need help.
All mammals: nurse their babies with milk from mammary glands and have hair (even if it is only a little).
Most mammals: bear live young, maintain a constant body temperature despite the changing climate, have differentiated teeth, and have four limbs (two legs and two arms, four legs, or a pair of flippers and fins).
Now that we know the similar characteristics of mammals, do you think there are many differences?
Point out some of the differences between mammals. Some mammals:
Eat meat, while others eat plants (carnivores vs. herbivores).
Spend most of their time in the ocean, while others never go near the ocean (dolphins vs. cows).
Give birth to live babies, while others lay eggs (humans vs. duck-billed platypus).
After some differences between mammals have been pointed out, ask the students to move their desks back so everyone can sit near the front of the room.
Once everyone is seated in front of me, I will read the book Is a Camel a Mammal? This book summarizes all the ideas that we just reviewed in our lesson.
While I’m reading this book, see if anything catches your attention about a particular mammal.
Read the book to the students.
When I am done reading, I will ask the students if they heard or saw anything interesting within this book (emphasizing the similar and different characteristics of mammals).
End of the Lesson: Time: 10 minutes
After the students share their thoughts about the book, I will ask them to move quietly and quickly back into their seats.
Now ask them to bring out their K.W.L. charts.
Tell them to write two to three things they learned about mammals today in class (as a reflection on the day’s lesson).
Ask if there are any last questions.
Assessment: There will be no formal assessment for this lesson. While the students are working in groups, I will listen to their conversations to make sure they are on task and to see what they are discovering. Also, the K.W.L. chart will be a form of assessment once this mini-unit is completed. Each student will reflect on what they learned that particular day, and I will use this to see their understanding.
References: http://www.discoveryschool.com (science lesson plans)
EXPLAIN
Concepts: There will be no new concepts taught in this lesson because this is the explain part of my mini-unit. Students will be looking back on what they learned and then putting it all together in their K.W.L. charts.
Rationale: This lesson is my “explain” section of my mini-unit. This part is very important because we are going to bring all the ideas and information the students learned over the past few days and tie it together. The students are going to use their K.W.L. charts to show what they learned about birds and mammals and then explain why this information is important to them and why it should be to the rest of the class as well. By using this explain section, the students will not be left with any questions they might have after the two explore days.
Objectives: The students will be able to:
Name at least one piece of information about birds and mammals that they found to be important.
Materials:
Teacher:
Dry erase board and markers
Class K.W.L. chart
Students:
K.W.L. chart
Pencil
Lesson Management:
Altogether this lesson should take about 25 minutes to complete. The only reason why it would take longer is if the students have more questions about birds and mammals than I had anticipated.
The normal classroom rules will apply during this lesson. However, the students will be working in the same group they have been all week, and I will remind them to keep their voices down and stay on task while they are working. Hopefully by the third day of being in these groups, the students will be more accustomed to the procedures. Also, if I have time to start explaining the vertebrate resumes during this class period, I will start telling the class about the project (because any extra time would be extremely helpful).
Beginning the Lesson: Time: 5 minutes
In the last two days, we learned about some warm-blooded vertebrates. Can anyone tell me the two groups we learned about? (birds and mammals)
And we filled out each section of your K.W.L. chart. Look at your chart now, at what you knew already and what you know now. Do you know more about birds and mammals now than you did before? (hopefully they will say yes!)
Today we are going to pull everything together that we have learned in the last two days.
Ask the students to move and sit with their groups (the ones they have been with all week).
Body of the Lesson: Time: 15 minutes
After everyone is situated in their groups, I will say that first we are going to look at the “L” section of our K.W.L. charts and reflect on what we have learned.
I will ask the students to take about 5 minutes to work in their groups and figure out 5 things that they learned that they thought were most important and why they were important (one piece of information from each person in the group).
As the students are working, I will circulate around the room to listen to their conversations. Also, I will draw the “L” section of our class K.W.L. chart on the front board.
After the 5 minutes is up, I will call the class’ attention back to the front.
I will tell them that we are going to add onto our class K.W.L. chart by adding their new knowledge to the “L” section.
Ask for a group to volunteer to go first. Ask them for their 5 most important pieces of information that they learned.
As the groups give their ideas, I will write them down on the board and also ask the students why they thought their information was important (for example, birds have hollow bones; this is important because hollow bones help the birds fly).
I will encourage the other students to write down anything that they might not have had on their charts.
End of the Lesson: Time: 5 minutes
After all the groups are done sharing their ideas, I will ask if anyone had any questions pop up while we worked with birds and mammals.
Once all the questions are answered or discussed, I will let the students know that they will be using all this information about birds and mammals to complete a fun project.
This is when I will lead into my vertebrate resume lesson plan (if I have time to start it on the same day).
Assessment: There will be no formal assessment for this lesson. However, I will assess the students’ understanding of my mini-unit by looking at all the information that the students share and write in the “L” section of their K.W.L. charts. This lesson will also lead into my formal assessment of the mini-unit: vertebrate resumes.
ELABORATE / EVALUATE
Concept: Since this is the elaborative/evaluative section of my unit, there will be no new concepts being taught. The students will be using the concepts that they have learned throughout the unit to complete this assignment.
Rationale: This activity is a good ending to a unit on warm-blooded vertebrates because it not only brings together some information from the unit, but it also gives the students a different way of showing what they learned (other than a test). The resume will be dependent on the information that they learned, and it will require them to work on their research skills to find additional information. The project will also require them to use their writing skills. Altogether, it will be an effective (and fun) way to end the mini-unit.
Objectives: The students will be able to:
Use knowledge from the unit and other research to write a resume for a warm-blooded vertebrate that follows the given guidelines.
Materials:
Teacher:
Example resume
Overhead
Paper for each student
Encyclopedias
Science books about vertebrates
Computer with Internet
Job bulletin board
Stapler
“Official Ballot” sheet
Dry erase board and markers
Students:
Pencil
Markers/crayons
K.W.L. chart
Science textbook
Lesson Management:
This lesson will take place over two days in the classroom. One day will be dedicated to working on the resume, and the other will be for finishing up the resumes and doing the “hiring” process. If more time is needed, I could possibly tally the scores by myself and present them to the students another day.
For this lesson, I will remind the students that even though they can talk while working on this project, they must keep their voices down and stay on task. If there are too many problems, they will need to work on their resumes without talking at all.
Beginning the Lesson: Time: 2-3 minutes
Today and tomorrow we are going to bring everything we learned about warm-blooded vertebrates together.
We are going to work on a project that will be fun, but also require some hard work.
We are going to make resumes for one of the warm-blooded vertebrates.
Body of the Lesson: Time: 40 minutes
Does anyone know what a resume is?
Explain that it is a writing (letter) that is used to get a job. It tells your personal information and what your qualifications are.
Start thinking of a bird or mammal that you would like to make a resume for.
I will show you an example of the resume I made (show example on overhead and read it aloud for the students).
This is just an example, but you can do it anyway you want. You can add pictures if you have time. Just make sure it is neat!!
You need to be sure to include the following sections:
Name of your animal
Class from which it comes from
When it was born
Age
Address (description of place it lives)
Personal description
Job that it is looking for
Other guidelines to follow:
You should not go over one page, front and back.
Write the resume in first person, like you are actually the animal.
Write in sentences (paragraphs) and careful with your grammar and mechanics.
You might need to research information on your animals. Find out interesting facts or abilities the animals have. You can use:
What you wrote on your K.W.L. chart
Science textbook
Encyclopedias
Internet
Books from library (possibly go there?)
Does anyone have any questions about this assignment?
Let the students work for about 30 minutes of their resumes.
I will walk around the class and answer any questions.
Announce that when the students are done with their resumes, they should come show the resume to me and then I will help them staple it on the bulletin board.
As the students give me their resumes, I will write down each vertebrate and job so I can add it to the ballot.
End of the Lesson: Time: 30 minutes
The end of the lesson will take place the next day.
Allow the students to put the finishing touches on their resumes if they need to.
If they are done, they can come get an “Official Ballot”.
The students will read the resumes that are on the board and then vote (on the ballot), which vertebrate is most qualified for the job and why they voted for it.
Once they are finished with their ballots, they can hand them in.
After everyone has done a ballot, I will hand the ballots out to each student.
On the front board, we will make a tally of the votes for each vertebrate. I will count student hands after announcing a job and a vertebrate.
We will discuss the final tally and our findings.
Assessment: The resumes will act as a formal assessment for my mini-unit on warm-blooded vertebrates. The resumes will be judged as follows:
Did the student include the required sections?
Did the student write in first person?
Did the student use a mix of research and knowledge from the unit to write the resume?
How were the style and mechanics of the writing?
References: “Taking a look at Vertebrates” The Mailbox (Intermediate) Dec./Jan. 2001-02