We looked at worms and cockroaches to kick off our second unit on what organisms need to survive, but most of our focus this time around was on plant needs. We planted radish seeds and made predictions about what might happen if we put some of our plants in the dark. A lot of us thought that the plants wouldn't go at all in the dark, but it turns out there is a little food to get the plant starts packed inside the seed. But to our surprise (!!!), the plants in the dark were WHITE! We were able to see a pattern that all of our plants in the light had large leaves with green and red straight stems, while our plants in the dark had shriveled yellow leaves and white wire-y stems. (K-LS1-1)

For this second weather unit, we used tools and materials provided to design and build a structure that will reduce the warming effect of sunlight on an area. (K-PS3-2)

After exploring PUSHES and PULLS in our stations, we looked at machines that use PUSHES and PULLS to do work. We even designed some of our own.

In our second unit, we are looking for at similarities (things animals do that are the same) in animals' behavior (such as digging) to find and describe patterns (such as looking for food). We have explored animal eating patterns, hiding behaviors, and where animals might live in the wild. We drew funny pictures about what we would serve if an animal came to dinner. We will be completing the first two mysteries in the Mystery Science Unit, Animal and Plant Secrets.

[K-LS1-1Use observations to describe patterns of what plants and animals (including humans) need to survive.]

We watched videos of animals eating behaviors and talked about how different animals have different food choices, but they all NEED to eat to survive.

We OBSERVED the cockroaches to see if they liked one food better than the others. It turns out there was a pattern in the behavior of the cockroaches and their eating preferences. We were surprised!!

We continued to look for patterns in animal behavior by watching and mimicking animals response to "scary" things, such as being poked or grabbed. We looked at snails, praying mantis, and gophers. We then drew animals that might live in holes in trees as a way to be protected. (This was also a Mystery Science activity.) Then we got out the cockroaches again and our turtles to observe their behaviors when they felt "threatened".

We read books about spider webs and watched some time lapse videos of spiders building their webs. We talked about how spiders build webs to get what they need, which is food. We talked about how they like to enjoy "fly milkshakes". We then worked to construct our own webs carefully and methodically like real spiders.

We brought all our learning together to construct an argument supported by evidence for how plants and animals (including humans) can change the environment to meet their needs [K-ESS2-2]. The students were able to reflect back across our observations of animals over the unit and add evidence to the statement "Animals change where they live to get what they need."

Students providing evidences to support an explanation that animals change where they live (their environment) to meet their needs (food, safety, shelter, etc.)