Exploring How Young Animals Resemble Their Parents

From evaluation of the Year 4 Science Assessment Task: Animal Habitats, it is evident that validity, reliability, fairness, flexibility and authenticity play an integral role in the planning and assessment process. Therefore, analysis of the strengths and weakness presented within this particular Assessment Task provides a foundation for potential betterment of the teaching and learning experiences provided within the Year 4 Science Assessment Task: Animal Habitats.

Lesson’s Goal: The goal is to help my group of students learn or enhance their understanding of different habitats through the investigation, observation, experimentation of some of the animals in their local environment and develop an awareness of what they need to survive. Students will also learn, compare and contrast different types of habitats thru research, cooperative hands-on activities and games suitable for some of my tactile-kinesthetic and visual learners.

Students at this level however do not need to get into the specifics. Continuing forward, when students are asked to make observations, they are being asked to see with their eyes and measure and collect data. Students will look at the varying types of plants and fish living in one area of Lake Michigan or Lake Huron; they will search for patterns and make connections to the diversity of life living in that area, while collecting empirical data along the way. Next, students will look at another area within one of these two lakes and repeat the steps. Once students have done this for several individual areas, or habitats, across the entire region students will then work towards taking their data for each and comparing one area to another. As students compare throughout the process, it is important to note that, for this purpose, they are looking for similarities and differences form one thing or individual to

This suggests all animals come from previous animals, but modified from natural selection. This is shown through an arm of a monkey and wing of a bird. The bone structure is similar, but the use is quite different. Analogous structures are different species having the same function but have evolved separately, thus do not share common ancestor. An example is a bird wing and an insect wing, both used for flying. Vestigial Structures have no apparent function, but resemble previous ancestors. They are left over from evolution. This is apparent in animals with tails. These three structures all support the theory of

“It is not always apparent to the students how or when new learning will be applicable, so it is important to convey how this knowledge will be useful” (Vasquez, Sneider, & Comer, 2013, p. 18). Why should students care about writing expository text, reading non-fiction, or using mathematical and computational thinking? The Animal Lifecycles unit provides students with opportunities to apply skills and content knowledge to accomplish a relevant task. Second grade students are naturally curious about their world and the interest in animal lifecycles supplies a relevant topic through which science, literacy, and mathematics skills and knowledge are authentically employed and assessed.

Finally, establishing an Animal Science class would give students a chance to try new things. By enrolling in this class, students could discover a hidden interest in animals. Since they are young and

Eventually at some time or another, somebody has to imagine what a dinosaur looks like. Maybe it is a Paleontologist, maybe it is an Artist, maybe it is a Movie Maker. Basically, everyone is entitled to deciding in his or her mind what a dinosaur may look like. How do we form these ideas, though? And on what information are these ideas based on? The “picture” of the dinosaur – whether it’s in our mind, on paper or a motion picture film – helps us to understand how these animals behaved.

lesson four: Classify animals through written test it will be matching the animal back to the class(type) apply their idea in their project

The first domain explored through the observations was cognitive development during infancy. Katherine is highly interested in animals, so when my dog walked into the room, she proceeded to point to my dog and say “dog”. She later saw a beach ball and

Observation is a definitive, important enquiry skill and a ‘cornerstone of the enquiry’ (Anderson, Martin, Faszewski, 2006) which a child will utilise whilst working scientifically. By definition, observation is an enquiry skill which serves as a scientific discipline used for the constructing and rationalising of explanations and theories; the skill is most effective when the controlling of variables has been made difficult to efficiently measure the outcomes of an investigation, meaning observation is the most beneficial way to evaluate results (Smith & Reiser, 2005). Moreover, within the classroom, observation has

Conservation – The child learns that objects are not always the way they appear to be. In this aspect,

The reliability of an assessment piece ensures that consistent and stable results are achieved (Black, 2015). By incorporating guidelines that state students are to use “collage materials provided” (Black, 2015. Assignment One, Appendix Two), when creating their animal habitats, the reliable factor of this assessment is strengthened. This allows all students to be marked to the same criteria, and have an identical understanding of the task.

Objective(s)/Learner Outcome(s): Students will be able to list characteristics of a grassland and different animals in it.

This item, Comparing Asexual and Sexual Reproduction, allows students to evaluate and communicate information about the basic similarities and differences between the two types of reproduction. Extend this item by having students create a two-column chart with headers “Asexual Reproduction” and “Sexual Reproduction” into which they add descriptions of organisms according to their mode of reproduction. This can be an ongoing project throughout the remainder of the lesson, giving students the opportunity to research and obtain information about different types of organisms and communicate this information via their

NYS Science Standard mandates that second graders learn that each generation of animals goes through changes in form from young to adult. This completed sequence of changes in form is called a life cycle. Therefore, this unit will concentrate on this aspect. This curriculum unit is called “The Life Cycles” and the focus content areas are ELA and Science. However, this unit also promotes art, social skills, and math. This unit is intended for a second grade classroom. This specific second grade classroom has fifteen students, in which one has ADHD and two are ELLs, whose primary language is Spanish. The purpose of this unit is to make students aware that each living thing has a life cycle and that although similar, life cycles differ from species to species.