Grade 1
Unit 3: ONE With Nature
ESSENTIAL Questions: How do animals survive?
What is our relationship with nature?
Project Description: Students empathize with nature and build appreciation for the plants and animals that call our planet home. They learn about animal behaviors and explore how plastic pollution affects their survival. Students become changemakers by investigating their use of single-use plastic, committing to a change, and inviting others to join their efforts in a PSA.
next generation science standards
Performance Expectations
1-LS1-2. Read texts and use media to determine patterns in behavior of parents and offspring that help offspring survive. [Clarification Statement: Examples of patterns of behaviors could include the signals that offspring make (such as crying, cheeping, and other vocalizations) and the responses of the parents (such as feeding, comforting, and protecting the offspring).]
1-LS3-1. Make observations to construct an evidence-based account that young plants and animals are like, but not exactly like, their parents.
1-LS1-1. Use materials to design a solution to a human problem by mimicking how plants and/or animals use their external parts to help them survive, grow, and meet their needs.*
1-PS4-1. Plan and conduct investigations to provide evidence that vibrating materials can make sound and that sound can make materials vibrate. [Clarification Statement: Examples of vibrating materials that make sound could include tuning forks and plucking a stretched string. Examples of how sound can make matter vibrate could include holding a piece of paper near a speaker making sound and holding an object near a vibrating tuning fork.]
Shore Buddies is raffling off 3 educator packages to SDUSD Grade 1 classrooms who submit a PSA for the STEAM ONE with Nature project. Submit your PSAs using this form by March 27th. Cheers to cultivating, curious, creative changemakers! 💕
ONLINE Learning Resources
Note: The project calendar and resources slides have been adjusted for online learning, however lesson scripts have not been revised.
*Unit 3 is inspired by the CA Science Framework and by California Environmental Principle 3: Natural Systems Change in Ways that People Benefit From and Can Influence.
Written by: Lacy Szuwalski and Zoë Randall.