Habitats

Big Idea 17: Interdependence

Benchmark: SC.2.L.17.2 - Recognize and explain that living things are found all over Earth, but each is only able to live in habitats that meet its

basic needs.

Strategy: graphic organizer, cooperative learning groups

Materials: construction, paper, paint, glue, scissors

Word Wall/Vocabulary: habitat, predator, prey, desert, forest, jungle, meadow

Literature Connection: A House is a House for Me by MaryAnn

Hoberman All Kinds of Habitats (It’s Science) by Sally Hewitt What’s Hiding? by Mario Gomboli The Architecture of Animals by Adrian Forsyth

Lesson/Procedure: 1. Brainstorm with students about habitats to elicit previous knowledge.

Read the book A House is a House for Me and conduct a discussion on what makes a habitat. Prepare a Desert Habitat table on the board or on chart paper, using the three subheadings given below Have the students tell you what goes under each category.

Desert Habitat

Plants Animals Other cactus snake rocks

2. Divide the students into groups and assign each a habitat. Have informational books available for the students to read. Have each cooperative learning group create a mural of their habitat and include a chart like the one shown on the previous page. They can add details using construction paper and flaps that reveal hidden animals.

3. Have the groups present their work. 4. Students can also adapt the book A House is a House for Me, using

animals from specific habitats such as a jungle, ocean, meadow, or forest.

5. Take a walk outside and see if the students can spot habitats of insects and birds. Have them write and draw what they see in their science journals. Suggested strategy: Provide mini-habitats for each cooperative learning group (examples: fish-bowls, plant terrarium, tadpoles) and allow the students observe these mini-habitats for several weeks, recording their observations.

Assessment

Each cooperative learning group makes a presentation describing their habitats, e.g., who lives in it, how food is acquired, how the animal survives, etc.

Part B: Food Chains and Habitats Materials: 9”x9” colored construction paper (4 sheets per student), crayons, colored pencils, glue Lesson/Procedures:

1. Review the food chain with the students. Have the students make food-chain dioramas as explained in numbers 2-8 below.

2. Cut construction paper in 9”x9” squares. 3. Have the students chose a habitat, an animal that is a predator from

that habitat, and one that is its prey. For example, if it’s a desert habitat, the student would put a sun at the top of the diorama, draw the plants from the habitat, show what the prey (a desert mouse) eats (plants, bugs) and then show a desert fox which is its predator.

4. Fold down the top right corner of one construction paper to the lower left corner. Repeat with the opposite corner.

5. Open and cut one fold line to the center of the square.

6. Have the students draw the habitat they have chosen. Overlap the two bottom triangles and glue in place.

7. Have the student make three more dioramas. They can put their habitat on these with the animals they have chosen. Glue all four together to make the diorama. When they are together they should depict the four components of the food chain (sun, plant, prey, predator).

Assessment: The completed diorama is the assessment.

*Make four of these triaramas and glue them together to show the four components of the food chain in a particular habitat.