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Hello,
My name is Nancy, and this is my first semester as a student teacher. This semester I did a 5E lesson on animal adaptations focusing on camouflage. For my engage I had students search for 'hidden' butterflies around the classroom that I colored to match the background. For my explore I had them look at 4 different pictures of animals and had them discuss what the living environment would look like for those animals to be able to camouflage and discuss how camouflage can help that animal inparticular whether it was a prey or a predator. For my explain I had the students do a frayer model on the word camouflage. For my elaborate I introduced the peppered moth and the relationship between camouflage, environment, and overpopulation. Lastly, for my evaluate I had them look up on their chrome books another animal that we didn't discussed about yet and tell me how that animal camouflages and how does that help them.
Does anyone have any other suggestions or ideas on how I can improve this lesson or parts of this lesson in my future classroom?
Thank you!
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That sounds great! Peppered moth is sort of a default selection so maybe consider one they're less likely to encounter as they explore on their own in the 'evaluate' stage?
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Hello, Nancy! We are actually doing a similar activity to your 'engage' activity in my classroom, today. The kids are loving it! I do not know what grade level of students you are working with, but we usually do this activity (https://www.lcps.org/cms/lib/VA01000195/Centricity/Domain/16656/Deer_%20Predation%20or%20Starvation%20Key.pdf) during the unit as well. It opens up the door for many thought provoking questions, and it helps us practice our graphing and data analysis skills.
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I think having hidden butterflies is great but you should also have ones that do not blend into the back round. That way the students can have a discussion about how it was easier for them to find the non-hidden butterflies vs the hidden ones and why that might be important in nature. If you have the students write about how camouflage is important for animals, also have a contrast of the animals hunting them and what happens to them.
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In the classroom I've been teaching in and observing this semester my teacher was teaching about camoflauge. A neat activity she did with the students was she had fake bugs of different colors. She then had half the class hide those bugs, and then the other half had a minute or two to find them. Then she expanded on why it was difficult to find the bugs. The students said because the color of the bugs and the background look alike. Then she was able to expand on the camoflauge lesson from there. It was a great way to engage the students for the lesson and to introduce the idead of camoflauge.
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I am developing a model to teach animal adaptation that will explore how different beak lengths in birds influence the force that they can apply to their food. It is still in development, but I hope to make it available soon---definitely by mid-February. My thinking is that this lesson will combine adaptation, simple physics, and math through graphing relationships. If anyone is interested in this I can let you know when I have it done.
The peppered moth is a great example for camoflauge. The suggestion of including less well camoflauged moths is an important point---selection can only occur if there is variation in the trait, in this case, coloration.
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i really like the subject i was wondering is there anyway it can be broken down into a topic on a elementry level?
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Hello,
I think having the students find the hidden butterflies in your class is an excellent way to engage your students. Your explore is activity helps the students know what their living environment helps the animals camouflage from a predator. I like how you compared a butterfly and a moth. It was great that you let them look up an animal of their choice to see how the animal camouflage in their environment.
Thank you.
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Sounds like fun!! I would include in that lesson or perhaps expand into lizards and frogs. They are two animals that are found just about every where and are very camo.
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