In the last unit, students explored how living things are found in different habitats around the planet and depend on both living and nonliving parts of their environment for survival. In this unit, students focus on plants. They begin with an experiment that investigates the science phenomena of how light and water help plants grow from a seed into an adult plant, and then focus on the function of flowers, which produce seeds.
In this unit, students are introduced to living things on Earth. They begin by exploring the differences between living and nonliving things and then investigate what plants and animals need to survive by watching bean plants grow and observing a cricket in its habitat. They then create a model to show how living things depend on other living things and their environment to survive, and can change their environment to help them get what they need.
In this unit, students focus on animals, analyzing how animals’ body parts help them survive and grow. This page is a high-level extract of the first lesson of the unit in which students build insect models to investigate the science phenomena of an insect’s body parts’ structure and function. Students observe how ants use their body parts to get what they need to survive.
This unit has students exploring animal habitat and predator-prey relationships. Once students model the living and nonliving parts of different habitats, they focus on how living things depend on other living things in their habitat for survival. As a class, students model the predator-prey relationship between foxes and rabbits in a forest habitat, and then dissect owl pellets to analyze a barn owl’s diet.
In this unit, students begin an exploration of life sciences. Once students have described the differences between living and nonliving things and analyzed what all living things need to survive, they focus on the parts of plants that help them get what they need to survive.
Standards citation: NGSS Lead States. 2013. Next Generation Science Standards: For States, By States. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. Neither WestEd nor the lead states and partners that developed the Next Generation Science Standards were involved in the production of this product, and do not endorse it.