Investigating Animals: Interdependence of Life In A Habitat

This activity is designed for students to learn how changes in an environment can be beneficial or harmful to animals. Students will be able to conclude information according to the evidence collected.

Materials:
-Pencil
-Science notebook
-Digital camera (optional)
-Hand lenses (optional)

This field exercise is most appropriate for class sizes of approximately 20 third grade students. Students should have an understanding of habitats and needs of animals before doing this project.

Vocabulary:
-Habitat
-Adaptations
-Camouflage
-Food chain/web

Activity may be done in a school yard or with pictures of habitats if a natural park is not available.

1) Explain to students that they are going to observe nature and how it applies to animals. Ask them what they need to look and sound like in order to make good observations of nature. They should answer that they will need to be quiet and sit still or move slowly/carefully.

2) Direct students to open their science notebooks to a clean page, put the date in the corner and write "Wander-Wonder" as the title. Make a T-chart with one side labeled "wander" and the other labeled "wonder". For every "wander" they write down, they must have a wonder question about the observation made. For example, if I observe that ants are crawling around an ant hill and carrying food, my wonder question could be "How much can ants carry?" or "Why do they live in a hill?" Remind students to use their senses.

3) Give students approximately ten minutes to observe and write their findings and questions down.

4) Bring them back for discussion. Ask students to share some of their observations. Ask some questions that help them realize which observations were man-made or nature made. (If a student mentions seeing trash, they need to recognize that it was man-made.) Then begin to ask students what animals might be affected by that observation and if it is helpful to them or harmful to them. Ask them to predict how changes in the environment might impact animals and write it down. They may do this in a small group or with a partner.

5) Go on a guided tour and ask students to keep an eye open for different habitats and how it affects animals, whether helpful or harmful. They may draw pictures of environments or take a digital photo for their notebook. We will begin at the picnic shelter and point out that the shelter was built by human and questions will be asked to help students recognize the benefits and harmfulness of this structure (i.e.: keeps people eating in a designated area, so maybe not as much trash is littered or it is harmful because it is taking up space and food that animals need to survive.) Students will be guided by the river, the butterfly garden, the wooded area, and the playground area. If students do not recognize an important aspect of the environments to animals, it will be pointed out and questions will then be provided to help further their thinking. Focal points will include, but are not limited to: plants and flowers, trees, soil and gravel, paved paths, bird and bat houses, trees that are growing and those that have fallen, wood stumps, rocks, water, slides and swings.

6) Students will continue to write down observations in their notebooks. After the tour, students should share what they conclude. Individually, they should write a sentence with the sentence stem "I learned ...because...." and finish the thought with what they gained from our observations and discussions.

Be sure to have students wear comfortable shoes/clothing appropriate for being in tall grass, near water, etc. Students may struggle to look at both sides of the issue of whether items are harmful or helpful. Try to show that they can be both and if the benefits outweigh the harm. I have never done an outdoors, inquiry activity like this for this particular animal unit. We typically read a short article about how the Arctic ice is melting and how it affects polar bears. Then we try to extend it to other situations. I hope students gain a stronger understanding about how environmental changes affect animals.

By looking at the "I learned...because" statement in their science notebooks, I should be able to discover whether students gained an understanding of environmental changes and their impact both positively and negatively to animals. As an extension to this activity, students could be assigned to find environmental changes in other habitats - rainforests, deserts, Arctic regions, oceans, swamps - and share the impact on a specific animal. This could be presented in any media form. (Ideas: poster, slideshow, play, song, video)

3.IV.C.2 - changes in a habitat
3.I.A.1 - Explore science as a tool