Per your request, attached are the two field trips the Brayton 3rd grade has requested through use of funds from the Elementary Outreach Program. I have given a brief description of the programs and how they relate to the Massachusetts Science and Technology Curriculum Frameworks. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. Thank you.
Robyn
Berkshire Botanical Gardens
Students will learn about plant parts, their structure and their purpose. They will classify plants by physical characteristics and discuss the life cycles of different plants. They will also discuss plant behaviors and how some plants survive in harsh conditions. Finally, they will discuss how energy from the sun is used by plants to produce sugars and how that energy is transferred in the food chain. Brayton third graders will use this information to plan and create a school garden, observe, gather and record quantitative data of changes in plants during the growing and dying season, and harvest the crops from the plants.
Standards that correlate to this program:
Life Science = (Biology)
-1. Standard 1: Characteristics of Plants and Animals
-1. Classify plants and animals according to the physical characteristics that they share.
-1. Standard 2: Structures and Functions
-1. Identify the structures in plants that are responsible for food, production, support, water transport, reproduction, growth, and protection.
-1. Standard 3: Structures and Functions
-1. Recognize that plants go through predictable life cycles that include birth, growth, development, reproduction, and death.
-1. Standard 5: Structures and Functions
-1. Differentiate between observed characteristics of plants that are fully inherited and characteristics that are affected by the climate or environment.
-1. Standard 9: Adaptations of Living Things
-1. Recognize plant behaviors and that many plants can survive harsh environments because of seasonal behaviors.
-1. Standard 11: Energy and Living Things
-1. Describe how energy derived from the sun is used by plants to produce sugars and is transferred within a food chain from producers to consumers to decomposers.
-1.
Berkshire Museum
The third graders would participate in one program that would be educator led by museum personnel and then would participate in several other programs that would be led by Brayton teachers. Teachers from Brayton have previously attended these programs and have program information to lead the group through each program.
Program Native Peoples
This program would be museum staff led. It focuses on hands-on exploration of traditional Mohican life and the ways in which this culture used the environment for shelter and storage and how by using elements of the environment designed and built prototypes to solve these problems. Students will be given information and instruction on how to problem solve and build a prototype of a Mohican home (teepee).
Standards that correlate to this program:
Technology/Engineering
Materials and Tools:
Standard 1.1 Identify materials used to accomplish a design task.
Standard 1.2 Identify and explain the appropriate materials and tools to construct a given prototype safely.
Engineering Design:
Standard 2.1 Identify a problem that reflects the need for shelter, storage, or convenience.
Standard 2.3 Identify relevant design features for building a prototype of a solution to a given problem.
Program Aquarium Exploration
This program would be led by Brayton teachers. It is an activity-based program that focuses on the traits and behaviors of aquatic life. Students will observe corals, fish, and invertebrates and investigate their environmental adaptations.
Standards that correlate to this program:
Life Science
Standard 1: Characteristics of Plants and Animals
Classify plants and animals according to the physical characteristics that they share.
Standard 5: Structures and Functions
Differentiate between observed characteristics of plants that are fully inherited and characteristics that are affected by the climate or environment.
Standard 6: Adaptations of Living Things
Give examples of how inherited characteristics may change over time as adaptations to changes in the environment that enable organisms to survive.
Standard 8 - Adaptations of Living Things
Describe how organisms meet some of their needs in an environment by using behaviors in response to information received from the environment. Recognize that some animal behaviors are instinctive and others are learned.
Program Playing Around with Simple Machines
This program will be led by Brayton teachers. Students will discover how simple and complex machines make toys spin, bob, etc. Students will identify and discuss the mechanisms (levers, wheels, cranks, etc.) that make the toys work.
Standards that correlate to this program:
Technology/Engineering
Standard 1.1 Identify materials used to accomplish a design task.
Standard 1.3 Identify and explain the difference between simple and complex machines (gears, wheel, wedge, lever, etc.)
Materials and Tools
Standard 2.2 Describe different ways in which a problem can be represented.
Standard 2.3 Identify relevant design features for building a prototype of a solution to a given problem.
Program Mammal Adaptations
This program will be led by Brayton teachers. Students will compare and contrast pelts, skulls, teeth, etc. to determine how Berkshire animals are adapted for survival.
Standards that correlate to this program:
Life Science (Biology)
Standard 2: Structures and Functions
Identify the structures in plants that are responsible for food, production, support, water transport, reproduction, growth, and protection.
Standard 5: Structures and Functions
Differentiate between observed characteristics of plants and animals that are fully inherited and characteristics that are affected by the climate or environment. (Fossils provide information about living things that inhabited the earth many years ago.)
Standard 6: Adaptations of Living Things
Give examples of how inherited characteristics may change over time as adaptations to changes in the environment that enable organisms to survive. (Interaction through the senses of sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste.)
Standard 8: Adaptations of Living Things
Describe how organisms meet some of their needs in an environment by using behaviors in response to information received from the environment. Recognize that some animal behaviors are instinctive.