Science 4 - Living Systems Websites

As can be seen in the picture to the left, this site simply divides the kingdom into six parts, and then your students can begin to explore not only information, but games and interactive components within each of the six subcategories that National Geographic uses. 

URL: https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/animals

One of the best parts about this site is that at the beginning, if you indicate that you are from Alberta, it shows you that this site is built around meeting an outcome in the Science 4 curriculum of 2023. When looking through all of the resources on this site it mentions near the beginning that this is made for a 30-45 minute allocation of time, but I would argue that with all the materials presented here, and the depending upon the book you choose to use, this could easily be three 30-minute lessons.

URL: https://letstalkscience.ca/educational-resources/lessons/animal-adaptations

Though the understanding that beneficial mutations (and beneficial deviations from average individuals) are ultimately what lead to the evolutionary development of adaptations, this site make it much easier to understand. If you believe that your students might struggle with the word "mutation," tell them the white lie that it is interchangable with "adaptations." Your students can then create a scenario where a factor such as predators or food limits the bunnies that can reproduce to increase the number of animals with certain adaptations. Ultimately, though students do not need to understand all the contents in this simulator (eg. dominant vs. recessive traits), it can be really helpful to begin exploring adaptations. Lastly, it is worth noting that all students can complete an "Intro" that helps them to understand how to use this simulator.  

It should also be noted that if you take this link, you are presented with over 30 activities to use in your class, and at this time, nine of them are geared towards elementary students. Those can be found here (once you create an account at PhET).

URL: https://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulations/natural-selection

This site has a good collection of resources when either introducing or reviewing some of the animal adaptations. There are six video that your students can watch, but then, likely even more engaging to your students, there are five games and a matching review site that held students feel that they understand why adaptations are so critical in the animal kingdom. Finally, the glossary might certainly be of some help when reviewing at the end of the unit.

URL: https://sciencetrek.org/topics/animal-adaptation

This site is built to accompany a visit to a museum that has many samples of animal adaptation throughout the museum itself, but what is nice is that it can still be a great resource without needing to be in the museum. As you go through this site, you will see that students are prompted in each example with a basic question that has already been placed there for them. You could encourage further questioning, but the site itself already has a question for each example. Each example also includes at least one picture; some of the examples include more. The entire site includes 25 different examples of adaptations, so you could also look at having each student in your class take one example and pursue some further questioning.

URL: https://museumofzoologyblog.com/2020/09/30/amazing-animal-adaptations/

Remember when you learned about applying Bloom's taxonomy in many of your education classes? This site directly addresses the use of the taxonomical levels in teaching students about animal adaptations. By clicking on each of the six levels of Bloom's taxonomy, you are given activities to do with your students at the level that you choose.

URL: https://www.uen.org/blooms/animal-adaptations/index.shtml

Though this unit is focused on animals in the wild and not domesticated pets, this teacher's guide does a great job walking you through integration of the Computer Science unit into this Living Systems unit. Students can choose an animal (based on various sprites) and then program it to survive; upon survivial they can then sprogram it to grow (when meeting certain objectives). Though this guide suggests that you will only need an hour to do this, I would suggest more time unless your class already has a strong background in Scratch.

URL: https://resources.scratch.mit.edu/www/guides/en/PetGuide.pdf

This is a great site that really promotes the E in STEAM. If you work through all of this activity, your students will end up designing and creating an invention that is based on a biological adaptation. It asks students to look at one of the animal senses that is notably different than a human sense, and then design and create a simulation of that sense.

URL: https://www.uen.org/blooms/animal-adaptations/index.shtml

What is nice in this site is that you can have student explore what adaptations animals have that might be most beneficial. So what if you combined some of these adaptations (found in different areas of the body) into a utopian animal? You can have your students create different animals by placing different heads, bodies, tails, and legs, and then argue why their animal might be one of the animals best-suited for survival!

URL: https://switchzoo.com/newzoo/map.html

Note: It should be mentioned that though I try to avoid them, this is one of those sites with advertising around the edges...