Vertebrates & Invertebrates: Life Cycles & Adaptations Table of Contents

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I.

Concept Map

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Vertebrates …………………………………………....………………….………………….........….................................................................................... 03 a. Fish Life Cycle …………………………………………....………………….………………….........…..................................................................... 04 b. Amphibian Life Cycle…………………………………………....………………….………………….........…...................................................... 05 c. Bird Life Cycle …………………………………………....………………….………………….........…..................................................................... 06 d. Reptile Life Cycle …………………………………………....………………….………………….........…........................................................... 07 e. Mammal Life Cycle ………………………………….………………….........…................................................................................... 08

III.

Invertebrates …………………………………………....………………….………………….........…............................................................................... 09 a. Butterfly Life Cycle …………………………………………....………………….………………….........…....................................................... 10

IV.

Animal Adaptations a. How Animals Adapt To Their Surroundings …………………………………………........................................ 11 b. Adaptation Visuals …………………………………………....………………….………………......................................................................... 12

V.

Migration/Hibernation a. How Animals Adapt To Climate Changes

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VII.

Learning Center

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Multiple-Choice Test …………………………………………....………………….………………….........…................................................................. 15

Concept Map

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Lesson Plan Topic: Vertebrates Grade Level: Second Duration: 40 Minutes Title: Animals With Backbones New York State Learning Standards: Standard 4 (Science): Students will understand and apply scientific concepts, principles, and theories pertaining to the physical setting and living environment and recognize the historical development of ideas in science. Objectives: Students will learn about vertebrates. Students will be able to place vertebrates into specific groups based on similarities and differences. Materials/Resources: Bag containing pictures of various vertebrates (i.e. fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals), video of the life cycle of a frog. Procedure/Activities: Students are shown a video that displays the metamorphosis of a frog, starting with an egg. The teacher will lecture to the class about the similarities and differences between different types of vertebrates (i.e. some live exclusively in water, some fly, some have live births, etc.). Following the lecture, the students will break into groups and they will be given the bag of animal pictures and asked to group them based on similarities. After 5-10 minutes, the teacher will make a chart on the blackboard and group the animals based on what the groups suggest. Then, the teacher will lead a discussion based on the grouping of these vertebrates. Assessment: Following the group activity, the students will be asked why the animals were grouped in the categories they were grouped and why they cannot be placed into another category (i.e. birds cannot be placed into the same category as a snake, because, while both lay eggs, birds can fly).

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Lesson Plan Topic: Fish Life Cycle Grade Level: Second Duration: 50 Minutes Title: Life Cycle of A Salmon New York State Learning Standards: Standard 2 (Science): Students will access, generate, process, and transfer information using appropriate technologies. Standard 4 (Science): Students will understand and apply scientific concepts, principles, and theories pertaining to the physical setting and living environment and recognize the historical development of ideas in science. Objectives: Students will understand that salmon are a type of fish and that they only survive in water. Students will be able to list the salmon life cycle stages in order. Students will be able to list three threats that salmon face throughout their lives. Students will understand the important role native fish play in aquatic food chains throughout their life cycles. The students will learn that these vertebrates live their entire lives in water and that most fish have scales and breathe through gills. Materials/Resources: Video showing life cycle of salmon, SMARTBoard, worksheet, construction paper, crayons. Procedure/Activities: Watch the selected video (from KidsTube.com) showing the life cycle of a salmon. After watching the video, the students will receive a worksheet showing the life cycle of a salmon. The teacher will discuss, with the class, each life cycle stage. As each life cycle stage is discussed, the students will be shown a picture to reinforce that image. List of Threats Egg Stage: Flooding that dislodges eggs from the redd; silt from bank development that crushes or suffocates eggs; crushing eggs by driving or walking through the redd; vulnerability to oil, gas spills, or other stream pollution; eggs are consumed by birds, insects, and other fish. Alevin: Similar dangers and predators to the egg stage. Fry: Eaten by many animals including pike, other salmon, kingfishers, mergansers, and terns. Smolt: Eaten by ocean fish, seals and sea lions when they reach the sea; they can become trapped behind beaver dams or flood debris during migration. Adults: Eaten by humans, whales, sharks, sea lions; vulnerable to oil spills and other ocean pollution. Spawners: Eaten by humans, bears, eagles, wolves, etc. They decompose, and release nutrients when they die. Assessment: The teacher will ask the students to remember the video and to brainstorm a list of the dangers the fish encounter at each stage. The teacher will also give the students a blank worksheet and construction paper, and they will be asked to cut out pictures symbolizing each part of the life cycle and they will then paste and color the parts of the salmon’s life cycle onto the construction paper, in order. Extension/Follow-Up Activities: As part of a performance-based assessment, the students will act out the life cycle stages of a salmon’s life. Also, the students may write a story from the viewpoint of a salmon describing its life.

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Lesson Plan Topic: Amphibian Life Cycles Grade Level: Second Duration: 50 Minutes Title: Life Cycle of A Frog New York State Learning Standards: Standard 4 (Science): Students will understand and apply scientific concepts, principles, and theories pertaining to the physical setting and living environment and recognize the historical development of ideas in science. Objectives: Students will learn that frogs are amphibians and that amphibians live in water and on land. Students will understand how frogs are born, grow, and live. They will also be told about other types of amphibians, such as toads and salamanders. They get oxygen through their gills and through their moist skin, as youngsters, but as older animals, they begin to develop lungs and breathe through their mouths. Materials/Resources: Pictures of different stages of a frog’s life cycle, book (Growing Frogs by Alison Bartlett), crayons, large paper. Procedure/Activities: Students will be broken into groups of four and each group will be given a picture of a different stage of a frog’s life. Each group will discuss its picture within the group. Each group will draw on large paper the stage their group has and some adjectives to describe that stage. Then, as part of an interdisciplinary lesson with children’s literature, the teacher will read Growing Frogs by Alison Bartlett, pausing briefly to show the pictures in the book and discuss what tadpoles are, why they grow legs, and how a frog’s body is formed. Assessment: The teacher will provide pictures of the various stages and ask the students to order the pictures (on the classroom wall), so that they will understand what order the stages are supposed to be based on the book that was read. The stages will remain on the wall for the students to see each day. Extension/Follow-Up Activities: Students can be asked to draw the stages of another animal, with accompanying adjectives. This will reinforce the concept being taught.

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Lesson Plan Topic: Reptile Life Cycles Grade Level: Second Duration: 45 Minutes Title: Life Cycle of A Komodo Dragon New York State Learning Standards: Standard 4 (Science): Students will understand and apply scientific concepts, principles, and theories pertaining to the physical setting and living environment and recognize the historical development of ideas in science. Objectives: Students will understand that a Komodo Dragon is a type of reptile and that lizards, snakes, and other cold-blooded animals with backbones are reptiles. Students will understand what a reptile is and how reptiles are grow and live. They will learn that snakes, crocodiles, and alligators are other types of reptiles and that they mostly have dry, scaly skin and breathe air through lungs. Materials/Resources: Book (Endangered Komodo Dragon by Bobby Kalman), photos, paper, crayons. Procedure/Activities: As part of an interdisciplinary lesson with children’s literature, the teacher will read Endangered Komodo Dragon by Bobby Kalman to the class and as the story is being read, the teacher will show photos that coincide with the stages being read about. As the story is being read, the students will be asked to write down any terms that they do not understand. After the story is read, as part of the inquiry-based lesson, the students will be asked to draw pictures of each stage of a Komodo Dragon’s life. The students will then break into small groups and converse on the words that they didn’t know. Through group help, they should be able to get the definitions of most of the words and the words that they cannot get the definitions, they will look up and write down the definitions. The teacher will go over the stages and new terms learned, with the rest of the class. Assessment: As part of an interdisciplinary lesson with English, students will be given a paragraph with missing words and the students will be asked to fill-in the blanks. In addition, the students will be given four pictures, signifying the stages of a Komodo Dragon’s life, and they will be asked to order them.

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Lesson Plan Topic: Bird Life Cycles Grade Level: Second Duration: 45 Minutes Title: Life Cycle of A Bird New York State Learning Standards: Standard 2 (Science): Students will access, generate, process, and transfer information using appropriate technologies. Standard 4 (Science): Students will understand and apply scientific concepts, principles, and theories pertaining to the physical setting and living environment and recognize the historical development of ideas in science. Objectives: Students will understand the life cycle of a bird. (Spring: Mating; Hatching; Summer: Growing, Fall: Migration). They will learn that birds are vertebrates with feathers and bills and they do not have teeth. They breathe air through lungs. They will learn that their wings are made of light bones with help most birds to fly and that their feathers also help to keep them warm. Materials/Resources: Video on the life cycle of a bird. Crayons, paper. Procedure/Activities: The students will first be told about how unique birds are and how they hatch from eggs, can fly, and need to stay warm. The teacher will show a video describing the life cycle of a bird. Assessment: As part of an interdisciplinary lesson with art, the students will illustrate the life cycle of a bird (from egg hatching, to being fed by the mother bird, to growing, to migrating to warmer weather, to laying eggs of its own). Extension/Follow-Up Activities: The students can get their own chicken egg in the classroom, monitor it before it hatches, watch it hatch and donate it to a zoo. Then, they can visit it periodically to see the life cycle of the chicken, first hand.

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Lesson Plan Topic: Mammal Life Cycles Grade Level: Second Duration: 45 Minutes Title: Life Cycle of A Mammal New York State Learning Standards: Standard 4 (Science): Students will understand and apply scientific concepts, principles, and theories pertaining to the physical setting and living environment and recognize the historical development of ideas in science. Objectives: Students will understand how mammals are born, grow, and live. They will learn that mammals typically have hair or fur for a portion of their lives, the hair helps to keep them warm, they are not hatched from eggs, they breathe through lungs, and they feed milk to their young. Materials/Resources: Book: The Bear (Life Cycles) by Sabrina Crewe Procedure/Activities: The teacher will read The Bear (Life Cycles) by Sabrina Crewe along with the class and show them the similarities between humans and bears (other mammals). The similarities of being grown in a mother before being born, of drinking a mother’s milk as a baby, slowly getting bigger, and how bears hibernate to stay warm throughout the winter. Assessment: In order to gauge if the students have fully understood the life cycle of a bear (mammals), as part of the inquiry-based lesson, they will be asked to break into small groups and create a small skit to act out the different stages of a mammal’s life cycle. They will relate the mammal their group selects, to that of a bear. Some groups may select elephants, lions, and other mammals.

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Lesson Plan Topic: Invertebrates Grade Level: Second Duration: 40 Minutes Title: Animals Without Backbones New York State Learning Standards: Standard 4 (Science): Students will understand and apply scientific concepts, principles, and theories pertaining to the physical setting and living environment and recognize the historical development of ideas in science. Objectives: Students will learn what invertebrates are. Students will be able to place invertebrates into specific groups based on similarities and differences. Materials/Resources: Bag containing pictures of various invertebrates (i.e. jelly fish, mollusks, clams, snails, squid, and insects). Procedure/Activities: The teacher will lecture to the class about the similarities and differences between different types of invertebrates (i.e. some live in water, some live on land and fly, etc.). Following the lecture, the students will break into groups and they will be given the bag of pictures of invertebrates and they will be asked to group them based on similarities. After 5-10 minutes, the teacher will make a chart on the blackboard and group the invertebrates based on what the groups suggest. Then, as part of the inquiry-based lesson, the teacher will lead a discussion based on the groupings of these invertebrates. Assessment: Following the group activity, the students will be asked why the invertebrates were grouped in the categories they were grouped and why they cannot be placed into another category (i.e. insects cannot be placed in the same category as snails, because snails live in water).

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Lesson Plan Topic: Insect Life Cycles Grade Level: Second Duration: 40 Minutes Title: Life Cycle of A Butterfly New York State Learning Standards: Standard 2 (Science): Students will access, generate, process, and transfer information using appropriate technologies. Standard 4 (Science): Students will understand and apply scientific concepts, principles, and theories pertaining to the physical setting and living environment and recognize the historical development of ideas in science. Objectives: Investigate relationships between plants and animals and how living things change during their lives. Students will learn words such as egg, larva, caterpillar, pupa, chrysalis, cocoon, and metamorphosis. Materials/Resources: The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle, video to show metamorphosis of a butterfly, SMARTBoard. Procedure/Activities: After observing the stages of the video of the life cycle of the butterfly, as part of an interdisciplinary lesson with art, students will create their own illustrations of the butterfly life cycle and label each stage of development. (This could be done on the top half of a folded sheet of paper or on a paper plate divided into quarters.) Encourage use of the vocabulary terms listed in the “Objectives.” Assessment: Ask students to compare the life cycle of a butterfly with the life cycle of one of the vertebrates they have already learned about. How are butterfly life cycles similar to the life cycles of other animals? How are they different? How many stages are found in the life cycle of a butterfly and other animals?

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Lesson Plan Topic: Animal Adaptations Grade Level: Second Duration: 60 Minutes Title: How Animals Adapt To Their Surroundings New York State Learning Standards: Standard 4 (Science): Students will understand and apply scientific concepts, principles, and theories pertaining to the physical setting and living environment and recognize the historical development of ideas in science. Objectives: Students will understand that animals adapt to their surroundings to better survive in their environments. Materials/Resources: Paper, crayons, scissors, construction paper. Procedure/Activities: The teacher will have a lecture/discussion with the class to better understand that all animals have different ways to adapt to their surroundings. I.

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Open Discussion Asking If Students Know Definition of “Adaptation” a. Relate adaptation to humans, lead discussion in this direction. b. How do humans adapt to changes? c. What changes to humans adapt to? Aside From Humans, Who Else Adapts To Things? a. Animals adapt to their surroundings. b. What are some kinds of things that animals may adapt to? c. Discuss climate changes, location of food, predators, etc. What Are Some Examples of Animals Adapting? a. Examples will be offered, as well as received, in a class discussion.

Students will be told about giraffes having long necks to reach leaves in trees for food, about how chameleons camouflage their skin color to blend into their surroundings to avoid predators, about camels that can store water while living in the desert, some animals have venom to protect them from predators, etc. As part of a discovery-activity, the students will venture outside to look for different animals and observe how they adapt to their surroundings. They may see squirrels climbing trees, gathering and burying acorns before the winter, they may find birds eating berries from a tree or building a nest with sticks they have found, they may not find any birds at all, they may find spiders spinning a web in a particular location, etc. Assessment: When the students return to the classroom, the students will break into groups to share with their group what they observed and what animals they found adapting to their surroundings. Then, as part of an interdisciplinary lesson with art, they will each draw a picture of an animal they observed in its surroundings and how it has adapted to its surroundings. Each group will share their pictures with the class to show they understand the concept. Extension/Follow-Up Activities: The student-created pictures will be hung-up, in the classroom.

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Adaptation Visuals

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Lesson Plan Topic: Migration/Hibernation Grade Level: Second Duration: 40 Minutes Title: How Animals Adapt To Climate Changes New York State Learning Standards: Standard 2 (Science): Students will access, generate, process, and transfer information using appropriate technologies. Standard 4 (Science): Students will understand and apply scientific concepts, principles, and theories pertaining to the physical setting and living environment and recognize the historical development of ideas in science. Objectives: Students will learn how animals adapt to climate changes in their habitats. Students will learn the differences between migration and hibernation. Materials/Resources: Short videos (from KidsTube.com) displaying migration and hibernation, SMARTBoard. Procedure/Activities: The teacher will explain to the students that migration is the act of moving from one place to another, while hibernation is to become inactive during the winter. The teacher will explain that certain birds in colder climates will instinctively fly to warmer climates when the weather gets colder and those same birds will fly back when that climate warms up, again. The teacher will explain to the students that some animals, like bears, sleep throughout the winter and come out of their hibernation when the weather becomes warm, again. The concepts will be reinforced through the use of technology (short videos from KidsTube.com). Assessment: Students will act out each word. Discuss the similarity between these behaviors (both are in response to changes in the season) and differences (migration involves movement, while hibernation involves a long rest).

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Learning Center

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Multiple-Choice Test

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1.)

Which of the following animals is an invertebrate? a. Squid b. Salmon c. Shark d. None of the above

2.)

Which kind of animal develops inside its mother? a. Insect b. Mammal c. Amphibian d. Fish

3.)

A chameleon can change its skin color to blend in with its surroundings, to help avoid predators. This is an example of… a. Hibernation b. Chrysalis c. Venom d. Camouflage

4.)

What is the name of the stage in the life cycle of a butterfly during which it changes into an adult? a. Pupa b. Larva c. Butterfly d. Caterpillar

5.)

Which of the following animals is a vertebrate? a. Snail b. Octopus c. Shrimp d. None of the above

6.)

What do jelly fish, spiders, and earthworms have in common? a. They are all animals without backbones b. The can all sting predators c. None of them have legs d. They are all animals with backbones

7.)

What do we usually call a butterfly when it is a larva? a. Egg b. Caterpillar c. Chrysalis d. Pupa

8.)

Which of the following animals is not an amphibian? a. Frog b. Salamander c. Toads d. Alligator

9.)

Which of the following animals hibernate when their climate gets cold? a. Octopus b. Butterfly c. Bear d. Pigeon

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10.)

Which of the following animals migrate when their climate gets cold? a. Jelly Fish b. Spider c. Lion d. Pigeon

11.)

Which of the following animals breathe through gills? a. Tuna b. Crocodile c. Butterfly d. Snake

12.)

Which of the following animals is not a vertebrate? a. Bear b. Blue Jay c. Fish d. Spider

13.)

Why a. b. c. d.

14.)

Which type of animal breathes through gills in early stages of life, but breathes through lungs in later stages of life? a. Reptile b. Amphibian c. Mammal d. Bird

15.)

Which animal does not hatch from an egg? a. Ostrich b. Fish c. Frog d. Squirrel

do animals camouflage their skin color? In order to being hibernation To blend in with their surroundings and avoid predators They don’t have a backbone So they can fly