Weird-O Animal Mission DueDate ______

Mission Briefing:

The world is a big place… like woh big! Three quarters of this planet we live on is covered in water. AND most of that water environment, we haven’t even explored yet. In fact, more people have walked on the moon, than have been to the deepest parts of our oceans. Just imagine what kinds of weird creatures could be down there! What types of specialized adaptations they could have to survive such crushing pressures?

On land, there are tons of weird creatures too! All you need to do is visit some islands and BOOM, weird stuff starts happening. Just take a look at Australia, Madagascar, or Borneo. Those are just a few places, there are plenty more. There’s all sorts of weird animals with weird, yet specialized adaptations living there.

Why are these animals so weird looking? Why do they have such different behaviors from other animals? …What does it mean to be specialized?

Mission Objective 1:

Your mission is to search the wilds of the lands or the depths of the oceans for the strangest animal you can find. This is no quest for a giraffe or clown fish, we’ve seen them before; we’ve already found Nemo. What you need to find is, a Weird-O!

We need to know:

·  Where it lives. / ·  Its Adaptations & Behaviors.
·  What does it eat? / ·  How endangered is it?
·  What does it mean to be specialized? / ·  Why/How do you think it got to be so weird?

Mission Objective 2 (Optional):

Keep your animal search a secret mission. If you are the only one to present a specific creature, you will earn an extra bonus point.

Mission Requirements:

·  Record your information in a TOP SECRET document containing between 200-300 words.

·  Documents should be presented in properly written paragraphs and void of spelling and grammatical errors.

o  Keep this document safe and in a secure location, you will need it when presenting your findings.

·  This is a solo operation. You must work alone, and at home. No class time will be given for this mission.

·  You must provide your source(s) of information in MLA format.*

·  Your source must be credible!*

*Did you forget how to do these things? Visit Ms. Hay, the Archivist (Librarian) in the Room of Knowledge (Library).