Download Snags and Rotting Logs - Four Winds Nature Institute

Volunteer Teaching Outline: Snags and Rotting Logs
From standing snags to lying logs, dead wood is essential in a forest, though its importance is often overlooked. As wood decays, a succession of
plants, animals, fungi and bacteria come and go, each furthering its decomposition. At every stage, snags and logs are hubs of activity, providing
food, shelter, perches, travel corridors and many other functions in the forest ecosystem.
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UNIT VOCABULARY
Habitat
Decomposition
Forest ecosystem
Humus
Spores
Stages of decomposition
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Decomposers
Community
Frass
Fungi
Hyphae
THIS MONTH’S ACTIVITES
Puppet Show: meet some inhabitants of standing snags and rotting logs and learn how
they contribute to the process of change and decay.
Time Machine: notice the changes that take place as a log decays and turns into soil.
Snag Search: look for evidence of animal activity in or on dead and decaying wood
outside.
Rotting Log Investigation and Journal Activity: examine a rotting log, looking for
evidence of living things - plants, animals and fungi - that live on or in it, and record
observations about them.
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SUGGESTED OUTDOOR
ACTIVITIES
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BOOKS FOR KIDS
Upper Grades Challenge: Invertebrate Investigation: notice characteristics of some
major groups of invertebrate animals.
Bark Beetles: examine bark beetle engravings on wood and look for clues about the life
cycle of these insects.
Closing Thoughts: share observations about rotting logs and their inhabitants.
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A Log’s Life, by Wendy Pfeiffer, Robin Brickman (Illustrator), Simon and Schuster Children’s
Publishing, 1997. (Informational; Age 4-8; Grade K-3)
Katya’s Book of Mushrooms, by Katya Arnold, Henry Holt & Co., 1997. (Informational;
Age 10 & up)
Mushroom, (Eyewitness Handbooks), by Thomas Laessoe, Dorling Kindersley Publishing, 1998.
(Informational)
Dead Log Alive!, by Jo S. Kittinger, Franklin Watts Publishing, 1996. (Informational; Age 10 and !
up; Grade 4-7)
Forest Explorer: A Life-Sized Field Guide, Nic Bishop, Scholastic Press, 2004. (Informational; Age 710; Grade K-4)
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SNAGS AND ROTTING LOGS ALIGNMENT WITH NEXT GENERATION SCIENCE STANDARDS
Grades K-2
• Core Idea LS1B: Plants and animals have predictable characteristics at different stages of development. Plants and animals grow and change.
Adult plants and animals can have young. In many kinds of animals, parents and the offspring themselves engage in behaviors that help the
offspring to survive. p.146
• Core Idea LS2A: Animals depend on their surroundings to get what they need, including food, water, shelter, & a favorable temperature. p.151
• Core Idea LS2B: Organisms obtain the materials they need to grow and survive from the environment. Many of these materials come from
organisms and are used again by other organisms. p.153
• Core Idea LS2C: The places where plants and animals live often change, sometimes slowly and sometimes rapidly. p.155
Grades 3-5
• Core Idea LS1B: Reproduction is essential to the continued existence of every kind of organism. Plants and animals have unique and diverse
life cycles that include being born (sprouting in plants), growing, developing into adults, reproducing, and eventually dying. p.146
• Core Idea LS2A: Decomposition eventually restores (recycles) some materials back to the soil for plants to use. p.151-152
• Core Idea LS2B: Matter cycles between the air and soil and among plants, animals, and microbes as these organisms live and die. p.153
• Core Idea LS2C: When the environment changes in ways that affect a place’s physical characteristics, temperature, or availability of resources,
some organisms survive and reproduce, others move to new locations, yet others move into the transformed environment, and some die. p.155
Grades 6-8
• Core Idea LS1B: Organisms reproduce, either sexually or asexually, and transfer their genetic information to their offspring. Animals engage
in characteristic behaviors that increase the odds of reproduction. p.146
• Core Idea LS2A: Organisms and populations of organisms are dependent on their environmental interactions both with other living things and
with nonliving factors. p.152
• Core Idea LS2B: Decomposers recycle nutrients from dead plant or animal matter back to the soil in terrestrial environments or to the water in
aquatic environments. p.153
• Core Idea LS2C: Ecosystems are dynamic in nature; their characteristics can vary over time. p.155
• Core Idea LS4D: Biodiversity is the wide range of existing life forms that have adapted to the variety of conditions on Earth, from terrestrial to
marine ecosystems. p.167
Note: The Disciplinary Core Ideas listed above are taken from Grade Band Endpoints in A Framework for K-12 Science Education. Additionally, our activities give children opportunities to engage in many of the
Science and Engineering Practices and reflect on the Crosscutting Concepts as identified in the Next Generation Science Standards.
SNAGS AND ROTTING LOGS ALIGNMENT WITH COMMON CORE STANDARDS
Grades K-6
• Common Core Writing Standard 8: Recall relevant information from experiences or gather relevant information from print and digital
resources; take notes and categorize information, and provide a list of resources.
Note: The Common Core Standards listed here are in addition to the ones that our activities typically address, as listed in the Four Winds document, The Nature Program: Alignment with
Learning Standards.
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