Download Adaptations Teacher`s Guide

Adaptations
Teacher’s Guide
February 2011
Grades: 4 & 5
Time: 2 ½ hours
Use discovery activities to reveal the importance of structural, functional and behavioral adaptations in plants and
animals. Wisconsin Standards: Students discover how organisms have adapted by developing special structures
to help them survive. Students develop explanations for the connections among living and non-living things in
the environment.
Focus Concept:
All living organisms must be adapted to their environment in order to survive and reproduce.
Essential Understandings, Processes, and Skills:
Understandings:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
All living things depend upon the environment to meet their basic needs.
Adaptations are beneficial mutations in the genes of living things. (Adaptations are genetic.)
Living things are adapted to their environment by structure, function, and behavior.
In each community live a variety of organisms specifically adapted to that community.
Different kinds of organisms have evolved various types of adaptations that enable them to survive together
within a community. (ex: cooperation/competition)
6. Each species has a different ecological niche.
7. The ecological niche of a species is its total way of life or its role in an ecosystem. It includes all physical,
chemical, and biological conditions a species needs to live and reproduce in an ecosystem.
8. In response to environmental change, life forms either adapt or die.
Processes and Skills:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Collect and observe living organisms
Use observations of organisms and other data to draw conclusions about their adaptations for survival
Design an organism adapted to a specific environmental situation
Determine ways different organisms can adapt to the same community.
Vocabulary:
Adaptation, biodiversity, competition, evolution, habitat, invertebrate, niche, transpiration
Background:
All living organisms exhibit adaptations. Living organisms are equipped in a variety of ways to cope with their
environments. They are ADAPTED to fill needs for things such as food, air, water and living space. An
1
Copyright Riveredge Nature Center, 2004. This curriculum is for educational purposes only. Copy and/or distribution is not permitted.
adaptation may be PHYSICAL such as the feathers on the wing of a bird or the leaves on a plant, or
PHYSIOLOGICAL such as the capacity of chlorophyll in the leaf to capture light energy or hemoglobin in the
blood to carry oxygen. BEHAVIORAL adaptations include such things as the mating dance of the sandhill crane
or the space maintained between people riding on an elevator.
An animal or plant that is not adapted to its environment will not survive long. An insect adapted to high levels of
oxygen dissolved in water may suffocate if oxygen levels drop due to pollution. An animal adapted to a specific
food cannot survive if the food source is lost. A plant dependent upon periodic fire for its seed to drop and
germinate may not expand its populations if wildfires are controlled. Fossils, written descriptions and photographs
record many species that have become threatened, endangered, or extinct because they could not adapt to a
changing environment. Thus, an adaptation is a two-edged sword, providing for success or limiting success under
new conditions. Produced by mutations, adaptations are components of the evolutionary process.
Humans as a species are highly adapted to the conditions of the environment in which we've evolved. Eyes, ears,
upright posture, disease resistance, long term pair bonding, community life and habitat manipulation are all
aspects of human adaptation to life on earth. Learning about adaptations helps to focus on the uniqueness of each
life form and its dependence on the environment to which it is adapted.
The study of adaptations may focus on a specific plant, animal, or insect. It may also be used in the study of
communities to illustrate how community living is based on many individual adaptations working with and
dependent on each other. The list of activities that follow can be done individually or in any combination.
Preparation Activities at School:
Riveredge is a partner with you, the teacher, in creating a high-quality educational experience. We depend on you
to prepare your students for the inquiry activities they will be doing at Riveredge. Please be sure to cover the
following material with your students before your field trip; italicized items are most directly connected to our
program. This preparation is essential to meet curriculum goals. We are committed to excellence so if you are
unable to meet the minimum expectations of this guide, please contact a Riveredge educator for help at 262-6756888(local) or 262-375-2715(metro).
Pre-fieldtrip Activities:
‰
•
‰
‰
‰
•
•
Denotes important activities that should be done prior to your visit to Riveredge.
Denotes additional activities to consider.
Familiarize your students with the vocabulary words defined at the end of this guide.
Review the things all living organisms need to survive (food, water, air, shelter, space, etc.).
Introduce the concept of adaptation, using both plants and animals as examples. (Activities might include
Project Learning Tree: “The Forest of S.T. Shrew,” or Project Wild: “Adaptation Artistry”.)
Ask each student to conduct a library investigation of a different invertebrate (insect, spider, etc.). Find out
its needs and how the animal meets those needs. Adaptations are how its needs are met!
Prepare a mural of extinct animals. What factors contributed to their extinction? Group the animals
according to the factor. Factors may include predation by humans (shooting of all the passenger pigeons),
loss of habitat, or environmental change (dinosaurs).
At Riveredge:
Please meet your Riveredge teacher/naturalists in the main parking lot. Large classes may be divided into smaller
groups, each with their own teacher/naturalist. This is best done upon arrival at Riveredge when the number of
students and teacher/naturalists has been finalized. Please have your students wear name tags. All necessary
equipment will be provided by Riveredge.
We will be outside most of the day, rain or shine! Older shoes and clothing are highly recommended. Boots can
be worn if rain is expected. Riveredge will supply rain ponchos if necessary. Sunglasses, cap with visor, sunblock,
and long pants and sleeves will avoid sunburn. It is the responsibility of the student to supply these things for
2
Copyright Riveredge Nature Center, 2004. This curriculum is for educational purposes only. Copy and/or distribution is not permitted.
themselves. Please check the weather forecast and plan accordingly. A small water bottle may be carried on the
trail if desired.
Students will…
1. Participate in experiments to reinforce the idea of adaptations.
2. Examine plants that grow in a field or forest for adaptations.
3.
Investigate insects that live in a field or forest for adaptations.
As they explore how organisms are adapted to their environment, students will become aware that all living things, including
people, are dependent on and responsive to their environment and that how people treat the environment impacts the ability
of living things to survive and reproduce.
Follow-up Activities at School:
Choose one of the following activities to complete with your students:
1. Review booklet and activities done at Riveredge.
2. Have groups of students research a plant or animal that lives in a specific biome (desert, arctic, ocean, rain
forest, etc.) to find its special adaptations that allow it to live there. Group presentations to the rest of the
class on what they discover could be presented using a variety of methods (songs, raps, poems, stories,
posters, etc.).
3. Ask students to invent an animal, its habitat and describe how it meets all its needs. Have them present their
animal to the class or display them in the classroom or hallways of the school.
4. Discuss cities and how they are adapted to fill humans’ needs. Then discuss peoples’ needs to see if we are
adapted to cities, i.e. problems of overcrowding, pollution, noise, etc. Include discussion of the impacts on
natural communities of people’s methods of adapting our environment to meet our needs.
Vocabulary:
adaptation A form, structure or behavior that a plant or animal has which helps it survive in its environment.
biodiversity The sum total of all the living things in a particular area, all of their individual variations and all of
the interactions between them.
competition When two or more organisms have the potential for using the same resource.
evolution The change in a species of organism through the processes of genetic mutation and natural selection.
habitat The place where an animal or plant lives or grows.
invertebrate An animal without a backbone or internal bony skeleton.
niche The role played by an organism in a biological community: its food preferences, requirements for shelter,
special behaviors, and the timing of its activities (e.g. nocturnal or diurnal). The niche of an organism has
less to do with where it is found and more to do with its function or role (e.g. predator, prey, decomposer,
etc.) and how it performs that function.
transpiration The process by which water moves from a plant’s roots out through its leaves.
Adaptations Additional Resources:
Websites:
Rainforest Plants: Plant Adaptations
This site describes some basic adaptations of rainforest plants and compares them to temperate forest plants as well.
http://mbgnet.mobot.org/sets/rforest/plants/adapt.htm
Adaptations Quest
This web quest asks you to predict how animals will change after being stranded on an island for 1,000 years. Learn about
how animals adapt to their environment along the way.
http://chalk.richmond.edu/education/projects/webquests/adaptations/
Books:
Science is…A source book of fascinating facts, projects, and activities, S. V. Bosak, Webcom Limited, 1991.
Keepers of the Earth, M. J. Cadato & J. Bruchac, Fulcrum, Inc., 1989.
The Insects, P. Farb, Time-Life Books, 1962.
3
Copyright Riveredge Nature Center, 2004. This curriculum is for educational purposes only. Copy and/or distribution is not permitted.
Botany for All Ages, J. Hunken, Globe Peqout Press, 1989.
Signals for Survival, N. Tinbergen & H. Falkus, Claredon Press, 1970.
4
Copyright Riveredge Nature Center, 2004. This curriculum is for educational purposes only. Copy and/or distribution is not permitted.