AUGUSTA COUNTY SCHOOLS

CURRICULUM MAP

Submitted by North River Elementary School 2013

CONTENT: 4.5 The student will investigate and understand how plants and animals, including humans, in an ecosystem interact with one another and with the nonliving components in the ecosystem.
TOPIC:
CONTENT
What do your students need to KNOW? / DEMONSTRATORS
What do your students need to be able to DO? / ASSESSMENT
How will you assess what your students ALREADY KNOW, and assess WHAT THEY’VE LEARNED? / ACTIVITIES
HOW will you teach it?
All students will know:
  • Plant and animal adaptations
  • Organization of populations, communities, and ecosystems and how they interrelate
  • Flow of energy through food webs
  • Habitats and niches
  • Changes in an organism’s niche at various stages in its life cycle
  • Influences of human activity on ecosystems
/ Students will:
  • Distinguish between structural and behavioral adaptations
  • Investigate and infer the function of basic adaptations
  • Understand that adaptations allow an organism to succeed in a given environment
  • Explain how different organisms use their unique adaptations to meet their needs
  • Describe why certain communities exist in given habitats
  • Illustrate the food webs in a local area
  • Compare and contrast the niches of several different organisms within the community
  • Compare and contrast the differing ways an organism interacts with its surroundings at various stages of its life cycle. Specific examples include the frog and the butterfly.
  • Differentiate among positive and negative influences of human activity on ecosystems
/
  • Students will take a pretest at the beginning of the unit and a posttest at the end of the unit.
  • Students will complete a KWL at the beginning and end of the unit.
  • Students will demonstrate knowledge through a variety of projects and assessments during the unit.
/
  • Students will choose an animal or plant that they have knowledge about. They should draw the animal or plant on paper and then write 3-5 of its adaptations, sorting them by structural or behavioral, and tell how it helps it survive after learning about adaptations.
  • Read and discuss science book pages and science leveled readers on this subject.
  • Students should choose a habitat, then plan out a food web that would be found in that habitat using appropriate numbers of producers, consumers, secondary consumers, and decomposers. They should make a poster of this, then draw in arrows showing the flow of energy.
  • Venn diagrams of niches
  • Read The Great Kapok Tree as a read aloud and discuss how it relates to these topics.
  • Make an ecocolumn with science kit materials.
  • “What’s My Niche?” activity from DOE
  • The Roadrunner: Designed for the DesertEdhelper book to teach adaptations & the difference between structural and behavioral.
  • Animal story (attached)
  • Adaptations prezi
  • MIND Notes

DIFFERENTIATION
How will you meet the needs of all students? / RESOURCES / TEACHER NOTES:
ESL- get support from ESL teacher for vocabulary
Mixed ability or leveled groups for projects
Choice activities based on preference and skill
Leveled readers /
  • Textbook P. A38-61, B7, B 64-75
  • Leveled readers:
Ecosystem Changes, Changes in Ecosystems, Parasitic Life,& Weird Plants
  • The Great Kapok Tree by Lynne Cherry w/ question sheet for teacher
  • Science kit provided by Augusta County Schools
  • Bill Nye DVDs:Food Web, Biodiversity, Evolution, Populations, Pollution Solutions
  • Edhelper booklet The Roadrunner: Designed for the Desert attached
  • United Streaming
  • ESS Sample Lesson Plans
  • What’s My Niche data sheet attached
  • Animal story attached
  • Mind notes attached