How Humans Can Have Negative Or Positive Impacts On The Life Cycle Of Animals And Doing Science

What were the objectives of this lesson? How well do you think your students understood the overall purpose and relevance of the lesson? (APS 4.A–C)

Unit Summary: This lesson unit focuses on the life cycle of butterflies. Students will learn about the growth cycle of a butterfly and what the stages are by name. Students will particiapate in different activities to support their learning and share what they learned.

For this course we received a hands-on opportunity to view science in an outdoors setting at Nixon County Park. I attended a training session to learn more about the practices and procedures of nature education and assisted two grade levels of children that visited the park. I helped first graders on a nature walk and fourth graders on an indoor lesson about animals. Both were unique experiences that helped me learn to become a better teacher of science.

Science is something that is not too much a part of the curriculum for this preschool classroom. I happened to be observing while they are watching caterpillars turn into butterflies. The first thing the teachers do is to explain the life cycle of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, and then they read the book The Hungry Caterpillar. This book has vivid illustrations and really breaks down the life cycle of a butterfly. Students are asked questions and as questions along the way to ensure they understand the text and to clarify anything that they do not understand. Once the book is over, students are asked if they have any questions. Some do, but the main question was “Can we see the caterpillars now!”

The lesson was created using the Wonders Unit 2 Week 4 instructional Path. The lesson is mid-unit and it is day two of Unit 2 Week 4

Animal Agriculture accounts for much of the issues in our environment today. Most would not think of animal agriculture being the main reason for pollution or greenhouse gasses. The majority of people would agree that the fossil fuels that come from cars are the number one producer for greenhouse gasses. Well think again. I am going to tell you how animal agriculture has affected our atmosphere in a negative way by emitting a large amount of GHGs, and in turn effecting our climate and speeding up the global warming process. Animal agriculture refers to an industrial livestock production, the management of farm animals such as cattle, poultry, and in some cases fish, are bred, fed and cared for in a way that is advantageous to humans, also known as factory farming. Animals behavior, genetic qualities and are altered to fit the mold of a human. This process requires a lot of energy, land and water.

“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.

This paper talks about a Unit Plan for made for a seventh grade Life Sciences Class. There are times when an instructor utilizes guidelines that are scripted and thoroughly created and times when the direction should be more open-finished and tolerably characterized. Quality teaching uses both the behavior and the intellectual standards and as a teaching knowing when and where to utilize each is a piece of the imaginativeness of instructing. A unit plan is a curriculum mapping tool teachers can use to orchestrate out their long-term teaching plan objective and goals for the whole year (Wang & Walburg, 2001, p. 24). The unit plan can break down the lesson into several short-term unit plans by months or a six-week period. Additionally a unit

Although animal testing has some negatives, it also has some positives. The association, Americans for Medical Processes has stated that “animal-based research has contributed to significant improvement in the length and quality of our lives.” One of the ways in which animal testing has assisted humans is in the treatment of cancer. Due to animal based research, scientists were able to discover new molecular and genetic understandings of tumor biology. This knowledge has lead to treatments that help solve the problem of cancer. Another way in which animal testing has helped humans is in HIV/AIDS. Although there is not a cure for the disease yet, animal testings have helped scientists make custom drugs with less side effects. Also, the knowledge

Influencing the lives of non-human animals for centuries, animals have led to appreciable advancement in society. The interactions that occur between people and non-human animals, particularly in the Appalachian region, has led to profound changes both on the local community and the nation. The most significant interaction to take place and has influenced the area drastically is domestication. Four types of domestication at the forefront of Appalachian culture are livestock, blood-sports, pet keeping, and animal’s prevalence in oral folklore. The introduction of domestication previous to and after the Neolithic Revolution has harbored new relationships between humans and animals that have altered the mountain face, culture, and economy of the Appalachian region.

Both countries have experienced polluted waters which have had negative effects on animals in their environment. For example, in 2007, multiple sea otters were found dead in the Pacific Ocean and a marine-wildlife veterinarian, Melissa Miller, determined that these otters were poisoned by a toxin called microcystin, which is produced by blue-green algae. When fertilizers and human sewage run into rivers and lakes, these toxins start to appear because nutrients are added that cause the growth of algae known as “super blooms”. However, sea otters don’t go to the areas these blooms occur in like polluted rivers and lakes. Miller then did some research and found that super blooms occurred frequently in a lake, Pinto Lake, that eventually drains into the area of the Pacific Ocean where the dead otters were found. The toxins were also found to be in shellfish which in a part of the otters’ main diet, so after this Miller concluded that the toxin travelled downstream in the ocean from polluted lakes, where they found their way into shellfish, and eventually ended up killing the otters. A similar event occurred in South Africa around the same time frame, but this involved crocodiles. Toward the end of 2008, rangers in the Kruger National Park (KNP) reported that around 170 crocodiles were found dead in the Olifants river with a similar estimate a year later in 2009. Veterinarians who performed the autopsies for these crocodiles determined the cause of death to be pansteatitis which is a disease based on nutrients that paralyzes animals leaving them to drown or starve to death, but it rarely affects animals in the wild. After some of the veterinarians did more research and analyzed the crocodiles’ fat tissue, they discovered that phytoplankton was the source of the high intake of fats in these crocodiles. However, the crocodiles don’t feed on it directly; so they did more research and found that downstream of the Olifants was Lake Massingir which is known for plankton blooms because of eutrophication. In the end, the veterinarians came to the conclusion that the silver carp, a fish that was purposely introduced into Lake Massingir, accidently escaped and found their way to where these crocodiles

I chose a news article about the human environmental impact on animals. We have made some changes by adding animals to the Red list,which has caused more exposure of the animals that are more at risk at extinction. Many reason for this decline in animals is because of human activity. The more people come together the more change they can do for the environment. While other differ in opinion, which disregard animal moral status.(Kantian Ethics)

PETA’s mission statement is that animals are not ours to eat, wear, experiment on, or abuse in any other way. In this world there is a major disconnect between humans and animals, because we view animals as are our own personal objects, instead of living beings. The number of animal deaths per year is substantial and it is reported by the animal equality article, in one year, 56 billion animals are killed for food consumption, and that does not include sea creatures (“Food”). Animal abuse of any kind needs to be put to a stop and the solution to better animal welfare is a vegan lifestyle. A vegan lifestyle is directly related to animal rights and equality and has so many benefits, such as increased animal welfare, improved health, and a prominent environment.

Animals play key roles in the environment. They help keep natural process running smoothly. Insects help in pollinating diverse plants around the world. Scavengers clean up the carcasses of dead animals everywhere. There are also many different animals that help the environment by recycling various human and animal products. Carnivores, omnivores, and herbivores also keep each other with in the proper population limit. Many of these animals are part of each other’s food supplies as well. Since all of these animals help one another and us, why would we not want to protect them?

The world we live in is a complex place full of networks and connections that are often veiled from our immediate perspectives. The natural resources and, material culture stemming from that, made available to humans directly affect the ways in which we are able to organize and conduct our lives. The ways in which we organize the space around us is a clear indication of wealth, race, or ethnicity. The minorities are often kept in isolation from the wealthier areas of society (be that economic wealth or natural resource wealth) which directly affects the jobs the minorities are able to obtain and further inhibits a lessening of racism by preventing a mixed association of races and different groups of people. Without the understanding of other people, racism is allowed to continue through the simple lack of social interaction.