Week 9: Living Things
Weeks 7, 8, and 9 make up a three-week cycle about living things. Currently, you are in Week C: Teacher As Designer. 

This week you should refer to the resources listed under Readings & References, and you need to complete the assignments listed under Assignments & Rubrics. This week’s assignments focus on…

Readings & References
Read: "During the elementary grades, children build understanding of biological concepts through direct experience with living things, their life cycles, and their habitats. These experiences emerge from the sense of wonder and natural interests of children who ask questions such as: "How do plants get food? How many different animals are there? Why do some animals eat other animals? What is the largest plant? Where did the dinosaurs go?" An understanding of the characteristics of organisms, life cycles of organisms, and of the complex interactions among all components of the natural environment begins with questions such as these and an understanding of how individual organisms maintain and continue life. Making sense of the way organisms live in their environments will develop some understanding of the diversity of life and how all living organisms depend on the living and nonliving environment for survival. Because the child's world at grades K-4 is closely associated with the home, school, and immediate environment, the study of organisms should include observations and interactions within the natural world of the child. The experiences and activities in grades K-4 provide a concrete foundation for the progressive development in the later grades of major biological concepts, such as evolution, heredity, the cell, the biosphere, interdependence, the behavior of organisms, and matter and energy in living systems."

"Children's ideas about the characteristics of organisms develop from basic concepts of living and nonliving. Piaget noted, for instance, that young children give anthropomorphic explanations to organisms. In lower elementary grades, many children associate "life" with any objects that are active in any way. This view of life develops into one in which movement becomes the defining characteristic. Eventually children incorporate other concepts, such as eating, breathing, and reproducing to define life. As students have a variety of experiences with organisms, and subsequently develop a knowledge base in the life sciences, their anthropomorphic attributions should decline. In classroom activities such as classification, younger elementary students generally use mutually exclusive rather than hierarchical categories. Young children, for example, will use two groups, but older children will use several groups at the same time. Students do not consistently use classification schemes similar to those used by biologists until the upper elementary grades."

"Young children think concretely about individual organisms. For example, animals are associated with pets or with animals kept in a zoo. The idea that organisms depend on their environment (including other organisms in some cases) is not well developed in young children. In grades K-4, the focus should be on establishing the primary association of organisms with their environments and the secondary ideas of dependence on various aspects of the environment and of behaviors that help various animals survive. Lower elementary students can understand the food link between two organisms." (Source--National Science Education Standards)

Recommended Web Sites:

• The Great Plant Escape
• Plowing Through Garbage
• Plants and Our Environment

Assignments & Rubrics
You will work individually and in teams to address living things during this three-week cycle. Use the links below to access the assignments and rubrics.

Week C: Teacher As Designer - Individual
Lesson Design Assignment & Rubric
You will individually design or find a sphere lesson for your students, post it in the Teacher As Designer space for feedback from your teammates, use their feedback to revise your sphere lesson, then post it again.

Week C: Teacher As Designer - Team
Feedback Assignment & Rubric
You and your teammates will serve as a "critical friend" to one another. When acting as a critical friend, use the Feedback Rubric and the criteria for effective concept-building activities you and your teammates developed in Week A: Teacher As Researcher to give an objective analysis of your teammates' sphere lessons. 

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