CLASSROOM CONNECTIONS

Lessons for the Classroom

Symphony Safari Grade 5 STEM PreFieldTrip Unit.pdf

Grade 5 STEM Pre-Field-Trip Mini-Unit

Driving Question - How can scientists use characteristics and evidence to classify organisms?

Purpose

This mini-unit is designed for a STEM Lab teacher to use before fifth-grade students attend the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra's Symphony Safari performance. The lessons intentionally emphasize science rather than music instruction. The ASO field trip is used as the authentic context: students will arrive with a working understanding of classification and will be ready to recognize and think about the animal groups represented during the performance.

Science Standards

S5L1. Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information to group organisms using scientific classification procedures.

S5L1a. Develop a model that illustrates how animals are sorted into groups (vertebrate and invertebrate) and how vertebrates are sorted into groups (fish, amphibian, reptile, bird, and mammal) using data from multiple sources.

Orchestral Instruments and Animal Classification

Lesson crafted by Dr. Kristin Lyman and Courtnaye Wood

Objective:

Students will be able to identify and classify the orchestral instrument families (strings, woodwinds, brass, and percussion) by sight and sound, and explain how this classification system parallels the way scientists organize living organisms into groups based on shared characteristics.

Elements/Vocabulary: timbre (the unique quality of sound), family (a group of instruments that produce sound the same way), classification (organizing things into groups based on properties).

Orchestral Instruments and Animal Classification.docx

Classifying Music Genres and Animal Classification

Lesson crafted by Dr. Kristin Lyman and Courtnaye Wood

Classifying Music Genres - A Comparison to Animal Classification.docx

Objective:

Students will be able to identify and classify music genres, including rock, country, hip hop, pop, jazz, and classical, by examining shared characteristics such as rhythm, instrumentation, vocal style, cultural origins, and musical structure. Students will explain how genre classification parallels how animals are classified into vertebrate and invertebrate groups based on shared characteristics.

Vocabulary: genre (categories of music with shared characteristics), classification (organizing things into groups based on properties), timbre (the unique quality of sound), rhythm (pattern of long and short sounds and silences over a steady pulse), melody (the pattern of high and low notes or tune of a song), vocal style (the way a singer chooses to express or deliver the song), lyrics (text or words of a song), structure or form (how music is organized).

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