Learning Unit:
Adaptation: Survival Of The Fittest

Content Knowledge

Declarative

Vocabulary: adaptation, structural adaptation, protective coloration, protective resemblance, mimicry, behavioral adaptation, instinct, hibernation, response, migration, stimuli

Steps for creating a Quick Write

Steps for slide narrative presentation

Procedural

Essential Questions

How well suited are various organisms to their environment?

What happens to organisms when their surroundings change? Can they survive?

In what ways can humans help or hinder organism’s survival?

Initiating Activity

View the videodisc program from Windows on Science, entitled Eat or be eaten. This should take two to three 50 minute class periods, including discussion and note taking time. Using this video disc program, with its interesting and diverse wildlife, engages students and creates excitement about the topic. This introduction will lay the groundwork and vocabulary necessary for further study. The videodisc program is a series of stills and short action photos. The series provides a frame by frame dialogue for the teacher, and it also includes many action segments, which include audio. Vocabulary words are highlighted and if desired, there are student activity sheets and tests included in the program. All audio is also playable in both English and Spanish.

Connection to State Learning Standards

Content Area: Science

Level: 6^th (Intermediate)

Benchmarks: 1:2, 1:4

• Construct explanations independently for natural phenomena, especially by proposing preliminary visual models of phenomena.
• Seek to clarify, to assess critically, and to reconcile with their own thinking the ideas presented by others, including peers, teachers, authors, and scientists.

Standard: 1 Scientific Inquiry

• The central purpose of scientific inquiry is to develop explanations of natural phenomena in a continuing, creative process.

Benchmark: 1:4 (from Draft of Madison-Oneida BOCES, July l, l998)

• Know that animals and plants have a great variety of body plans and internal structures that serve specific functions for survival.

Standard: 1 The Living Environment

• Living things are both similar to and different from each other and nonliving things.

Benchmark: 1:1, 1:2 (from Draft of Madison-Oneida BOCES, July 1, l998)

• Know sources of variation in organisms and their structures and relate the variations to survival.
• Understand factors responsible for competition within species and the significance of the competition

Standard: 3 The Living Environment

• Individual organisms and species change over time.

Benchmark: 1:3, 1:4, 1:5 (from Draft of Madison-Oneida BOCES, July 1, l998)

• Know ways in which species interact and depend on one another in an ecosystem.
• Know how an organism’s ability to regulate its internal environment enables the organism to obtain and use resources, grow, reproduce, and maintain stable internal conditions while living in a constantly changing external environment.
• Know that organisms can react to internal and external environmental stimuli through behavioral response, which may be determined by heredity or from past experience.

Standard: 6

Plants and animals depend on each other and their physical environment.

Benchmark: 1:2 (from Draft of Oneida-Madison BOCES, July 1, l998)

• Understand the effects of environmental changes on humans and other populations.

Standard: 7

• Human decisions and activities have had a profound impact on the physical and living environment.

Learning Experiences

Declarative Knowledge

Learning Experience 1

(50 minutes)

The student will know or understand:

Concept: The relationship between an animal’s adaptations and the animal’s ability to survive.

Experiences & Activities:

SciencePlus Technology and Society, HBJ, l993 Unit 2, Lesson 9 "Adaptation of Structure" pp. 98-102.

Strategies:

Questioning and Reading actively from SQ3R (DOL p. 60)

Cooperative Reading Groups

What will be done:

The class will be divided into 6 cooperative reading groups. The group will choose a reader and a recorder. Other students will help generate the questions to be recorded and participate by being active readers. On chart paper, the recorder will write the titles and headings (from pages 98 and 99) as questions as well as write down any questions that arise from the group as the reading is done. When all groups are finished with pages 98 – l02, the class will discuss, as a whole, the questions generated. The activity on page 100, also done as a team, will be reviewed to determine which group correctly identified the most bird adaptations. If you wish, page l00 can be done as an individual homework assignment.

Learning Experience 2

(50 minutes)

(Independent student homework)

The Student will know or understand:

Vocabulary terms: structural adaptation, protective coloring, protective resemblance, mimicry, behavioral adaptation, adaptation, instinct, hibernation, response, migration, stimulus (These words are from the Initiating Activity video disc program.)

Experiences & Activities:

Glossary of vocabulary terms in their notebooks. Review of terms in class. Check for understanding of terms as a class exercise.

Strategies:

Students create three QUICK WRITES to show understanding of adaptation terms.

Constructing meaning for vocabulary terms.

Pictorial representation of information.

What will be done:

Students will use their vocabulary words to show an understanding of the concept of the word. Each student will receive a handout explaining the assignment called QUICK WRITES(see Attachment #1 QUICK WRITES). The teacher will assign each student to choose three words that they feel they need to have a better understanding of from the list above – in other words, don’t choose what they would consider the "easy" words. Following the procedures on the QUICK WRITE handout, the teacher and the class will generate an example on the overhead (using a word other than one from the list above). The teacher will then place three completed QUICK WRITES on the board; one an exemplar, one acceptable but with errors and one totally unacceptable. The students will then critique the three examples finding the errors.

Students will be given time in class to find the photos that must accompany their three assignments. Students should be given about 1-2 weeks to complete this assignment – allowing time for access to computers for those who do not have them at home.

Learning Experience 3:

(50 minute class)

The student will know or understand:

The difference between how an animal is built for survival (structural adaptation) and how an animal acts to survive (behavioral adaptation).

Experiences & Activities:

One page from Unusual Animals Stories and Puzzles.

Strategies:

Color Coding, Peer consulting

What will be done:

The teacher will list five numbered sentences on the board that are either behavioral or structural adaptations of a commonly known animal. After discussing the definitions of both terms with the class, students will be asked to write both terms side by side on a piece of paper and draw a vertical line between them. They then need to reread each sentence and put the correct numbers under the appropriate heading on the paper. After a discussion to check that each person understands the difference between the two terms, the teacher will hand out a different sheet to each student at the table (or group of desks clustered together). In a class of twenty, there should be five different animal sheets with four copies of each. No student sitting at the same table should have similar animals. Students are then directed to read through the entire page once. After the second read through, hand out green and yellow highlighters or colored pencils to all. Students are to use a yellow highlighter or colored pencil to highlight the structural adaptations and a green highlighter or colored pencil to highlight the behavioral adaptations. When finished they are to find the other 3 students that had the same animal to read about and compare their answers. Discussions should take place about why they highlighted as they did. Once they have reached consensus, they should add their highlighted comments to the master chart provided by the teacher. As review, the entire class should read over the total list and categorize the items (students should generate the titles for categorizing – possibly having such titles as: protective coloring, escape tricks, hunting techniques, etc.)

Learning Experience 4

( two or three 50 minute class periods)

The student will know or understand:

In order to survive, all creatures have ways of protecting themselves from harm. Nowhere in the animal kingdom are the types of protective measures as unique as in the world of insects. Both camouflage and mimicry involve types of protective coloration. All are common on the North American continent, and some may be occurring in students’ own backyards.

Experiences & Activities:

Drawing an insect after reading a short description of its defenses.

Strategies:

Physical and pictographic representations of information.

What will be done:

Obtain copy of the slide set Camouflage and Mimicry in Insects, Slide Set #453 by Ron West (available from educational images ltd.).

The teacher should make copies of the words that go with the slide presentation and put each separate slide text in an envelope (each one is numbered to correspond with each slide). Label the envelopes with the organism’s name and the slide number. Hand each student a different envelope. They should also be given a 5x8-index card and colored pencils. They need to write the insect name on the top left line and the number on the top line on the right. The student should then draw a vertical line down the middle of the card. Their name should go in the bottom right corner . After reading the words in the envelope they should draw the organisms as best as they can from the description. They should draw the organism that mimics something on the left side of the index card. On the right side they should draw what it mimics. When they are finished drawing they need to practice the words, as they will be reading them out loud to the class. When everyone is done (should take one 50 minute class period), the slide presentation should start. In numerical order, each student goes to the front of the class and reads the text. They then show the class their representation of the organisms. After everyone has had a chance to see the drawing, the student holds his or her card up to the screen as the teacher clicks the corresponding slide onto the screen. The students love to compare their initial interpretations with the true organism. At this time, discussion about the various cases of mimicry and techniques used should be discussed.

I do not grade the end result of the drawings. If a grade were desired, I would base it upon effort and presentation.

Learning Experience 5

(A 50 minute class period)

The Student will know or understand:

Over millions of years, animals have evolved an enormous range of techniques using colors, patterns, and mimicry as defense tactics and aggressive weapons in their continuing battle to survive.

Experiences & Activities:

Wild Survivors: Camouflage & Mimicry a National Geographic Video (45 minutes)

Strategies:

Advance organizer worksheet.

What will be done:

Handout the guided worksheet (Attachment # 2 Guided Worksheet for video) and read over it with the students before viewing the video. Fast forward through the credits to the beginning, (this will enable you to fit this into a 50 minute class period). Students should actively view the program taking notes on their worksheet as it progresses. This is an excellent way to end the unit. The video is enormously popular with the students and it shows a vast array of organisms and their unique struggles for survival.

Attachment # 1 QUICK WRITES

Migration

Arduous and necessary

Pulsating wildly

As steady as a summer rain

If only geese could go Delta!

Attachment # l continued

Quick Write Analysis

Attachment # 2 Guided worksheet for video

Read this worksheet through before viewing the video, Wild Survivors: Camouflage & Mimicry.

All creatures spend the majority of their time finding food and/or avoiding being someone else’s food. The video you are going to watch shows you a marvelous array of tactics that allow organisms to survive.

********************

The bush baby searches for food in the ______________. Its ability to ____________ in the dark helps it to find food. If it is pursued it uses it’s ______________________ to reach safety.

Weather causes necessary adaptations for survival. The ptarmigan’s feathers are camouflaged to help it blend in to its surroundings. Two other adaptations it has to help it survive in winter are _____________ and ____________________________________.

The more closely you match your environment the better your chance for survival

The catkin moth can mimic both the leaves and twigs of the catkin tree that it hatches on by absorbing ____________ from the leaves that it eats. No matter what time of year it hatches, it grows to resemble the best camouflage for that stage of the tree growth.

The praying mantis is easily identifiable on the forest floor. However, when it reaches the _____________ it becomes so well camouflaged that insects walk on it thinking it is part of this flower.

In the ocean, the Caribbean flounder is so well camouflaged on the sandy floor that only its ______ are exposed.

The crab uses bits of ____________ to decorate its shell. It also uses the tentacles of the sea anemone.

Some species are bright and this signals distastefulness or danger.

Watch this fascinating survival technique of the ichneumon wasp. That is if you aren’t the poor unsuspecting ladybird beetle!

The reed warbler ends up brooding the egg of the _____________ bird. My what a large baby we’ve had!

In the ocean, the anemone fish is able to live upon the stinging ___________ because it is coated with the same mucus.

The rainbow sea slug of the pacific coast eats the tube dwelling anemone. It shears off its tentacles and absorbs its ___________ _________. These cells transfer to the tips of the slug. It not only got a meal, but it also got _______________.

Another common strategy of organisms it safety in numbers.

The African ___________ bird flies in flocks numbering in the millions. Predatory birds can not distinguish one bird from the other to attack.

Cooperation is another way that organisms survive.

Meerkats take turns _________________ so the other adults can feed.

All of the above are tactics to avoid being detected, but what if you are found? Watch carefully and find out some of the interesting defenses.

Bibliography

Books:

SciencePlus Technology and Society. 1993 edition (Green edition, 6^th grade) Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.

Unusual Animals Stories and Puzzles 1982 edition Enrich Division/Ohaus, San Jose, CA

** Note: This is old and may not be available, however, there are many other sources you could use for this activity (ex. Ranger Rick, Science Scope, various reading comprehension books, etc.)

Video:

National Geographic Wild Survivors: Camouflage & Mimicry copyright 1989 (45 minutes)

Videodisc:

Windows on Science Life Science Volume 1. Copyright 1990 Optical Data Corporation, Warren, NJ

2481. 908-755-0577 (Fax)

Slides:

Camouflage & Mimicry in Insects. Slide Set #453 by Ron West. Copyright 1979

Educational images ltd., PO Box 3456, Elmira, NY.