Part 2: Build Your Own Planet
Assignment #2 notes
This assignment should be launched with a whole class discussion about animal interactions. Begin with the question, “What are some ways that different forms of life interact with each other?” Encourage students to give examples of how different living things impact each other. Generate a list of animal-animal, animal-plant or plant-plant relationships.
Students may need encouragement to come up with ideas beyond predator/prey relationships. If needed, give examples of other relationships, such as parasitic or symbiotic relationships.
Here are some examples of parasitic relationships: fleas and dogs; remora and sharks; parasitic wasps that lay their eggs on caterpillars, allowing the larvae to live off the caterpillars; tape worms (or harmful bacteria) and humans.
Here are some symbiotic (mutually beneficial) relationships: algae and fungi living together in lichens;E. coli bacteria in human intestines; clown fish living among sea anemones.
There are other interactions students may not think of. Lions will kill cheetah without eating them because they compete for food.Catbirds rely on other bird species to raise their young. Hermit crabs live in the shells of dead mollusks.Many bacteria and beetles consume carrion or break it down into soil, thereby benefiting all nearby life forms. Remind them that plants are also living things and that there are many different plant-animal interactions, such as bees pollinating flowers, plants that rely on birds or deer for seed disbursal, or insects that use plants as camouflage or shelter.
Try to generate an exhaustive list, supplying any gaps as needed. You can draw an example of a food web if desired, but try to avoid a straight, hierarchical food chain, as these are usually inaccurate and incomplete. After a wide variety of interactions have been listed, have students get out Assignment #1 and their life form drawings and get into their groups. Pass out one copy of Assignment #2 to each group. Explain that the groups need to figure out how all the life forms discovered in their group interact. Every life form must interact with at least one other life form, and collectively all the life forms must be connected somehow, but not every life form has to interact directly with every other one. Then review the requirements for the posters and pass out the presentation guidelines to the communication officers.
Begin by allowing each member to show and describe their life form to their group. After all group members have presented, the group should collectively discuss and determine a web of interaction. Once again, encourage students to think beyond simple predator/prey relationships. If they get stumped, have them look over the list that was generated at the beginning of the lesson.
Build Your Own Planet
Final Project: Poster Presentation
Your mission is nearing completion. You and your crewmates have explored your planet and discovered new life forms. It is now time to return to Earth and show the people of Earth what you have learned about your planet and its life forms.
Your crew will make a poster summarizing all you have discovered about your planet and the life on it. All the crew members will work together on it. The group commander will make sure that all the required information is included. The guidelines for making the poster are below.
Before you begin work on your poster, meet with your crew members and share your life forms. Show your drawing and share the information you recorded on your Planning Sheet. Then decide how your life forms interact with each other. Your life form must interact with at least one of the other life forms discovered by your crew members. All the life forms in your group must interact with each other somehow, although not every life form has to interact directly with every other one. You might start the discussion by brainstorming with your crew members all the different ways that different species can interact.
After the groups have developed their interaction webs they should begin their posters. Tri-panel presentation boards are very effective, but large white poster board is also adequate and much cheaper. Students should be given ample time to complete their posters. Two or 3 days to a week is reasonable. Some in-class time should be allotted so that group members can collaborate. In might be a good idea to review the different responsibilities before giving class time to work on the posters. Group commanders should make sure that all requirements are being covered and that everyone in the group has an opportunity to contribute.
Poster Instructions
- All students must contribute to the group poster.
- Each student should draw/write about their own life form.
- Groups should collaborate on the interactions of their life forms.
- Groups can decide for themselves who will do what in describing their planet. It is the group commander’s responsibility to see to it that the planet is described adequately.
- Posters may contain writing, drawings, designs or anything else you think will make it look good and tell people about your mission. You may write/draw directly on the poster, or you can work on paper and attach the paper to the poster. You may cut things out of magazines, newspapers, etc., or print things from the computer and attach them to the poster.
- Posters may include samples collected from your planet, (rocks, life forms, artifacts, whatever), but these are not required.
- The communication officer will briefly present your crew’s poster to the rest of the class. He or she should use the Guidelines for Communication Officers to plan the presentation.
Your poster should include the following information about your crew:
Name of crew;
Name of individual crew members.
Your poster should include all of the following information about your planet:
Name of planet;
Mass of nearest star, its age and its estimated life cycle;
Planet’s distance from nearest star;
Type of surface and albedo;
Type of atmosphere and greenhouse effect;
Average surface temperature;
Any factors that affect the range of temperatures on your planet
Location of liquid water.
Your poster should include some of the following information about your planet: (use your imagination for these)
Temperature range and factors affecting the temperature range (rate of rotation, thickness of atmosphere, tilt, etc.);
Other objects in the planetary system, their impact on your planet;
Interesting surface features, including effects of weathering, erosion, mountain building, glaciers, etc.;
Composition of atmosphere (is it breathable?) and/or oceans;
Interior of planet;
Plate tectonics, and/or volcanism;
Orbit, rotation;
Seasons, hot regions, cold regions;
Impact of life on the planet and/or threats to life on your planet;
Economic potential of your planet -- gold, oil, food, valuable minerals, etc.;
Any factors that affect the rate of evolution on your planet;
Any other interesting discoveries about your planet that you want to share.
Your poster should include all of the following information about each life form:
Name of life form;
Who discovered it;
Where it was found, type of environment;
Drawing of it;
Size, weight;
How the life forms interact.
Your poster should include some of the following information about your life forms:
Diet, fuel source;
Predators/prey;
Unusual behaviors;
Reproductive cycle;
Life cycle, life stages;
Relative abundance (are they common or rare?);
Impact on environment, or position in food chain;
Age of species, existence of fossil record;
Number of genders, gender differences in appearance or behavior;
Any other interesting discoveries about your life form that you want to share
Your poster will be evaluated on the information presented (60% of total) and the quality of its appearance (40%). The information should reflect the things you have learned over the course of this unit. You should include all the required information and some of the extra information. It should be neat, easy to read with correct spelling and grammar, well designed and pleasing to look at.
Finally, all crew members are dependant on each other for the success of the mission and their own survival. Crew members will need to make an extra effort to work and cooperate with each other if they are going to make it back safely to Earth. Therefore, your group can earn 5 points extra credit if all group members participate and cooperate with each other. Good luck.
A grading sheet for the poster is available in Appendix B.
Presentations: In general, presentations should be kept to under a few minutes. The communications officer is responsible for presenting the poster to the class, and she/he has a form listing what information to present, but all group members should be part of the presentation and be encouraged to add any other information they think the class should know about their planet or life forms. Allow time for the group to answer questions from the class about their poster before moving on to the next presentation, but it may be a good idea to set a fixed number of questions that can be asked of any one group.
Build Your Own Planet
Final Project: Poster Presentation
Guidelines for Communication Officers
Presentations should be brief. When you present your poster to the class you should present the information listed below. If you want, you may write notes on this form to use when you present.
Presentations: Required Information
Names of Crew Members: ______, ______,
______, ______, ______
Average Surface Temperature of Planet: ______º C / F
Location of liquid water on the planet: ______
Other information about your planet that you think is important: ______
______
______
Names of life forms discovered: ______, ______,
______, ______, ______
How these life forms interact: ______
______
______
______
Other information about your life forms that you think is important: ______
______
______
Appendix A
Standards Addressed
Benchmarks (Grades 3 through 5)
1A – The Scientific World View
Results of similar scientific investigations seldom turn out exactly the same. Sometimes this is because of unexpected differences in the things being investigated, sometimes because of unrealized differences in the methods used or in the circumstances in which the investigation is carried out, and sometimes just because of uncertainties in observations. It is not always easy to tell which.
1B – Scientific Inquiry
Scientific investigations may take many different forms, including observing what things are like or what is happening somewhere, collecting specimens for analysis, and doing experiments. Investigations can focus on physical, biological, and social questions.
Scientists' explanations about what happens in the world come partly from what they observe, partly from what they think. Sometimes scientists have different explanations for the same set of observations. That usually leads to their making more observations to resolve the differences.
1C – The Scientific Enterprise
Science is an adventure that people everywhere can take part in, as they have for many centuries.
Clear communication is an essential part of doing science. It enables scientists to inform others about their work, expose their ideas to criticism by other scientists, and stay informed about scientific discoveries around the world.
5A – Diversity of Life
A great variety of kinds of living things can be sorted into groups in many ways using various features to decide which things belong to which group.
5C – Cells
Some living things consist of a single cell. Like familiar organisms, they need food, water, and air; a way to dispose of waste; and an environment they can live in.
5D – Interdependence of Life
For any particular environment, some kinds of plants and animals survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all.
Insects and various other organisms depend on dead plant and animal material for food.
Organisms interact with one another in various ways besides providing food. Many plants depend on animals for carrying their pollen to other plants or for dispersing their seeds.
Changes in an organism's habitat are sometimes beneficial to it and sometimes harmful.
5E – Flow of Matter and Energy
Some source of "energy" is needed for all organisms to stay alive and grow.
5F – Evolution of Life
Individuals of the same kind differ in their characteristics, and sometimes the differences give individuals an advantage in surviving and reproducing.
11A – Systems
In something that consists of many parts, the parts usually influence one another.
Benchmarks (Grades 6 through 8)
1B – Scientific Inquiry
Scientists differ greatly in what phenomena they study and how they go about their work. Although there is no fixed set of steps that all scientists follow, scientific investigations usually involve the collection of relevant evidence, the use of logical reasoning, and the application of imagination in devising hypotheses and explanations to make sense of the collected evidence.
1C – The Scientific Enterprise
No matter who does science and mathematics or invents things, or when or where they do it, the knowledge and technology that result can eventually become available to everyone in the world.
3A – Technology and Society
Technology is essential to science for such purposes as access to outer space and other remote locations, sample collection and treatment, measurement, data collection and storage, computation, and communication of information.
5A – Diversity of Life
Animals and plants have a great variety of body plans and internal structures that contribute to their being able to make or find food and reproduce.
5D – Interdependence of Life
In all environments-freshwater, marine, forest, desert, grassland, mountain, and others-organisms with similar needs may compete with one another for resources, including food, space, water, air, and shelter. In any particular environment, the growth and survival of organisms depend on the physical conditions.
Two types of organisms may interact with one another in several ways: They may be in a producer/consumer, predator/prey, or parasite/host relationship. Or one organism may scavenge or decompose another. Relationships may be competitive or mutually beneficial. Some species have become so adapted to each other that neither could survive without the other.
5E – Flow of Matter and Energy
Over a long time, matter is transferred from one organism to another repeatedly and between organisms and their physical environment. As in all material systems, the total amount of matter remains constant, even though its form and location change.
5F – Evolution of Life
Individual organisms with certain traits are more likely than others to survive and have offspring. Changes in environmental conditions can affect the survival of individual organisms and entire species.
11A – Systems
Thinking about things as systems means looking for how every part relates to others. The output from one part of a system (which can include material, energy, or information) can become the input to other parts. Such feedback can serve to control what goes on in the system as a whole.
12D – Communication Skills
Make sketches to aid in explaining procedures or ideas.
Benchmarks (Grades 9 through 12)
1A – The Scientific World View
Scientists assume that the universe is a vast single system in which the basic rules are the same everywhere. The rules may range from very simple to extremely complex, but scientists operate on the belief that the rules can be discovered by careful, systematic study.
1B – Scientific Inquiry
Investigations are conducted for different reasons, including to explore new phenomena, to check on previous results, to test how well a theory predicts, and to compare different theories.
Sometimes, scientists can control conditions in order to obtain evidence. When that is not possible for practical or ethical reasons, they try to observe as wide a range of natural occurrences as possible to be able to discern patterns.
1C – The Scientific Enterprise
Science disciplines differ from one another in what is studied, techniques used, and outcomes sought, but they share a common purpose and philosophy, and all are part of the same scientific enterprise. Although each discipline provides a conceptual structure for organizing and pursuing knowledge, many problems are studied by scientists using information and skills from many disciplines. Disciplines do not have fixed boundaries, and it happens that new scientific disciplines are being formed where existing ones meet and that some subdisciplines spin off to become new disciplines in their own right.