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| The goal of this unit is for students to learn about the needs of plants and animals and that they meet their needs by changing their environments. The unit driving question is Why do animals and plants change their environments? In this unit, students use an ant farm, photographs, videos, and models to observe how ants, beavers, plants, and humans change their environments. They also make observations of pictures of ants, beavers, humans, and plants to identify what they need to survive and what makes them living things (compared to nonliving things). Students also investigate why animals and plants live in certain places. Students then build on their understanding of why animals and plants change their environments to consider ways to minimize human impacts on the land, water, and air. They explain that protecting the environment can help animals and plants survive by giving them a safe place to meet their needs. Students write an informational text about how to protect the environment so ants can continue to grow and survive. |
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| The lessons in the Ever-Changing Environments Unit help students make sense of the needs of plants and animals, how they get what they need, and why protecting the environment can help plants and animals. Lesson 1 introduces students to the puzzling phenomena, driving question, and students make observations of ants changing their environments in an ant farm. Lesson 2 has students observing how beavers change environments by building dams and lodges. In Lesson 3, students make observations of how plants change their environments. In lessons 4, 5, and 6, they make observations of what ants, beavers, humans, and plants need to survive. In Lesson 7, students identify what living things need to survive and how this is similar and different from what constitutes a living thing. In Lessons 8 and 9, students answer the unit driving question and use that information to explain why animals and plants live in certain places. In Lesson 10, students identify different ways humans harm the environment, why that is a problem, and describe one way they can protect the environment, instead. In Lessons 11 and 12, students write and share their informational texts about why animals change their environments and how protecting the environment can help animals. | Ants are living things, animals, and insects. As such, ants need food, water, and air to live. As ants make tunnels in the soil, they create more space for plant roots to grow. Beavers and humans are also living things and animals that need food, water, and air to live. Beavers build dams in order to create ponds that keep their stores of winter food fresh through the winter. Similar to ants and beavers, humans also change their environments in order to meet their needs of food, water, and air. For example, humans clear forests for farming. Plants are also living things and similar to animals, they need water and air to live. However, different from animals, they need sunlight in order to make their own food. Plants change their environments in ways such as growing through and around objects like sidewalks in order to meet those needs. |
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| Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems: Animals, Plants, and Their
Environment Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems: Animals, Plants, and Their
Environment K-LS1-1 Use observations to describe patterns of what plants and animals (including humans) need to survive. K-ESS2-2 Construct an argument supported by evidence for how plants and animals (including humans) can change the environment to meet their needs. K-2-ETS1-1 Ask questions, make observations, and gather information about a situation people want to change to define a simple problem that can be solved through the development of a new or improved object or tool. K-2-ETS1-3 Analyze data from tests of two objects designed to solve the same problem to compare the strengths and weaknesses of how each performs. Copyright © 2001-2015 State of Michigan | By the end of this unit, students will be able to: • Identify the needs of plants and animals. • Explain how plants and animals live in places where they can get what they need to survive. • Construct an argument about why animals and plants change their environments. • Write and share an informational text about how people can protect the environment and why this can be helpful for animals and plants.
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| | Each lesson begins with an essential question. Please see Lesson Planner tab.
Teachers provide students multiple opportunities to engage in the practice of Asking Questions and Defining Problems:
Asking questions and defining problems in K–2 builds on prior experiences and progresses to simple descriptive questions. - Ask questions based on observations to find more information about the natural and/or designed world(s).
- Ask and/or identify questions that can be answered by an investigation.
- Define a simple problem that can be solved through the development of a new or improved object or tool.
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| Assessment Statement #1: Students can use observations and information from texts about ants, beavers, humans, and plants to describe patterns of what plants and animals need to survive. (aligned with K-LS1-1) Lessons 4, 5, 6, & 7
Assessment Statement #2: Students can construct arguments supported by evidence for how ants, beavers, humans, and plants can change the environment to meet their needs. (aligned with K-ESS2-2) Lessons 1, 2, 3, & 8
Assessment Statement #3: Students can construct an explanation about why ants, beavers, and plants live in certain places based on what they need to survive and grow. (aligned with K-ESS3-1) Lessons 4, 5, 6, & 9
Assessment Statement #4: Students can communicate solutions that will reduce the impact of humans on the land, water, air, and/or other living things. (aligned with K-ESS3-3) Lessons 10, 11, & 12
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