Is It Alive?
Kindergarten Science Lesson: Madelon Cheatham, Science Specialist
Objective: Students will discuss objects and determine if they are alive or not alive.
Students will make observations of living and non-living things.
Time: 1 class period
Materials: For each student group: prepare a tray containing a plant, vial of dry yeast, pinecone or lichen, rock, vial of sand, chicken bone, isopods, pond snails, or earthworms in containers. Have on hand some warm water and sugar to mix into the vials so that the students can observe the bubbles as the yeast produces C02. This will not occur in the vial containing sand.
Alternate: If materials are a factor, place the items at different places around the room and allow the student groups to rotate through the stations, discussing and deciding if each item is alive or not. You may prepare a picture check sheet with the items or have an “alive, not alive” ballot and voting box at each station.
Lesson Procedure:
Engagement:
- Whole class or pairs (Think-pair-share): Have students give examples of living and non living things and review the characteristic of living things. (Students' response might include: Living things eat, breath, move, die, have offspring, grow, change etc.)
- Record student responses on the overhead or blackboard
Activity:
Explain the activity and distribute trays of items to each group of students.
Explanation:
1) Examine your specimens.
2) For each of your specimens, discuss the following questions
a) How is the specimen like a living thing?
b) How is the specimen not like a living thing?
c) Would you say the specimen is alive or not alive? What is your evidence?
(Focus on what you can directly observe.)
3) Choose the specimen about which you have had the most interesting discussion, and be
prepared to present your conclusions about whether it is alive or not. Your conclusions
should be supported by your observations.
Class Discussion:
1) Randomly assign a reporter for each group; have each report their ideas to the class.
2) Have the reporter hold up the specimen and describe it to the rest of the class and the
reasons for choosing their answer:
a) Did you and your partner decide that the specimen was alive, not alive, or are you
uncertain?
b) What is your evidence for that decision?
Alternate Method: If students circulated through a series of stations, ask them to do much the same activity with the items they examined. Then count the ballots at each station to determine what the students thought of as living and non-living. Review any misconceptions.
Checking for student understanding:
Encourage students during their discussion with their group as well as during the discussion to question and challenge each other. Depending on the age of your students you might want to model how to ask clarifying and/or skeptical questions:
"Why do you think that?", "What made you decide that?", "But what about ______?”“How does that fit with your decision?"
Questioning each other not only challenges students to think deeply but also models how scientists are by nature skeptical of one another’s findings and allows students to become accustomed to defending their positions with evidence.
Be sure to address any misconceptions the students have. Draw a ‘T’ Chart on the board and fill in the items in correct columns “alive”, “not alive”. Discuss the yeast as being a living thing, as students may not have believed the yeast was not alive. Comment on the difference between what happened when water and sugar was added to the sand and the yeast.