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This online NSTA Learning Center is very informative and the support is awesome. I just finished the Interdependence of Life SciPack. I learned a lot of new things. I taught the beginning of my first lesson to the 2nd graders about animals that live in distinct environments. I posted the question "What types of environments are there? What are the conditions of the environments? What animals live in the environment?" The students had difficulty thinking of descriptive words to describe condition of the environments/habitat such the desert, ocean, and forest. I wanted them to use their prior knowledge to come up with a description of the environments and what animals they thought lived there. I was going to read a book that was about environments and the animals in them. I planned to have the students use a red pen to add the ideas they didn't already have written down. I wanted the students to act out different animals in the environment or...I was trying to think of an idea that was a bit more interactive. Any ideas?

Amy, Describing is very difficult, even for older students. Can you have a word wall that might help them get started with the process? Could you have a large piece of paper with the different habitats and then give each student a picture of an animal then have them place the picture in the correct habitat? (or maybe have them draw a picture or cut one out of a magazine?)

I am currently doing this unit in Biology and I wonder if anyone has any fun activities the students can do to learn more about food chains and food webs and interdependence. Right now I have a bunch of worksheets that we go over to see the food chains and food webs, and I have the students draw their own food web and we put them on the bulletin board. I also have a worksheet that shows the carbon cycle and how oxygen and carbon dioxide are circulated in the biosphere. I make the students color the worksheets and that helps them follow the paths a little better. Biogeochemical cycles are a little hard for them to keep straight. But I'm hoping repetition will allow it to sink in their brains soon.

Hi Tina- I teach Biology too and have adapted parts of the Hoike O Haleakala curriculum (www.hear.org/hoike) when teaching about food webs and interdependence. I like their curriculum because it has relevant organisms that students can relate to in Hawaii. I use the Marine Module, specifically the Marine Ecosystem unit. There you can print out the cards of organisms found in the Hawaii's waters and the students create trophic levels according to what they eat. My students have always enjoyed the hands on aspect of manipulating the cards to create the food web- it has also forced them to see how organisms depend on one another. There's also a Ciguatera reading that helps them understand how the toxins moves up the food chain. Hope this helps!

Hi Amy, I taught 2nd grade last year and I enjoyed teaching students about habitats. First, I focused my lesson on specific habitats to study, like the arctic, ocean, wetland, rainforest, and savanna. We completed a "circle map" on each biome, which showed what students knew before the lesson. Then I went to the library and checked-out all of the books and materials possible about those places and shared them with the class during the following week. Students were able to add to our previously created circle map. The fun part was when I broke the class up into groups and anonymously assigned them a biome to act out. The other groups had to guess what biome the first group had and so on. Each performance had to show parts of the habitat assigned with at least one animal and plant. The students were very creative and they really enjoyed it. They were only allowed to perform with their bodies, no sound.

Lynn, Thanks for the great website! I think I can adapt it to use for my Biology and Marine Science classes. The worksheets are nice too! I will let you know how well the lesson works out...

I feel like I'm up to my ears in teacher references and websites, but is there some sort of unit plan? I can have my kids research and present biomes like I have before, but I was hoping for something more inquiry based.

I understand your frustrations. I work with 3rd graders who have very little background knowledge and limited English. I attended this Project GLAD (Guided Language Acquisition Design) PD class. It's a great strategy to use to incorporate academic vocabulary. My favorite is making chants about the topic and using appropriate vocabulary and ideas. The kids love chanting along and making hand motions with the chant. The chant will encourage students to use academic vocabulary in orally and in writing.

Casi, I attended the Project GLAD PD course this summer. As I was reading through this thread, I kept thinking about the strategies that I learned in that course and how I can really build my ELL students' vocabulary and understanding of science content areas. I plan completing the Interdependence of Life SciPack and incorporating what I learned at Project GLAD to really help my students grasp the information. Thank you for mentioning it. I'm so glad (pun intended) to read that others are also using Project GLAD techniques to help English Language Learners, too! I'm planning on making a Big Book, and using graphic organizers that they taught us to use.

Hi Amy! I teach kindergarten, so I know how it is to need kids to interact and be active during a lesson. I also taught 2nd graders one year and I know they love to act too! I think it would be great to act out animals in different environments. As you say an animal, it would be good to remind talk through all that you have learned together about that animal. If they live in a cold habitat, they can also act out being cold, looking for food (knowing what they eat), and can even act out what they usually do. Another thing to expand on food chains, you can have children act out different animals in the food chain, then choose a few kids to act out one animal, while a few other kids act out another animal trying to get away from that animal! You could also add to the chaos and add in a few other kids acting out a third kind of animal as another part of the food chain. This sounds like a fun lesson, I wish I could come see it in your class!

Thanks Casi, I'll be on the lookout for any GLAD workshops.