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This quiz would be used a game to refresh the students memory of the material and help the teacher understand what she needs to go back over or see what the students understand very well. This quiz provides pictures and statements for the students to decided if they think that means endothermic or ectothermic.

Quizizz- Endothermic vs. Ectothermic. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://quizizz.com/admin/quiz/56efe5e77cba8aed16437a04/endothermic-vs-ectothermic

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Free gamified quizzes on every subject that students play in class and at home. Pick an existing quiz or create your own for review, formative assessment, and more.

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This lesson would be used to introduce the content of classifying animals. This website provides important information on how scientist classify animals and the students will have the ability to research and classify different animals.

Classifying Animals. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.mensaforkids.org/teach/lesson-plans/classifying-animals/

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This website would be used for students to explore different habitats and see why animals would choose to live there. Students will fill out a worksheet exploring different habitats and explaining the animals in that habitat.

Explore.org. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://explore.org/livecams/currently-live/decorah-eagles

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Explore.org is the world's leading philanthropic live nature cam network and documentary film channel. Our mission is to champion the selfless acts of others, create a portal into the soul of humanity and inspire lifelong learning. Watch nature unfold live right now!

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This video would be used to give students examples of animals that hibernate. Students would then think about what other animals hibernate and why.

WILD, N. G. (2018, November 09). Which Animals Hibernate? | Animal Autofill. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P60c0GFHJBc

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Which Animals Hibernate? | Animal Autofill

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This video would be used to show students how animals have adapted to their environment and predators to survive. This video shows students explains of animals all around the world that use different tactics to survive from predator attacks.

Wildlife, E. (2017, February 08). 17 Amazing Animal Defense Mechanisms. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1xpqS1jcJPw

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This project would be used to have students think about all of the adaptations that are needed for animals to survive. The students will have the ability to think about where they would find their created animals and what the animal needs to look like to survive in their habitat.

Judkins, J. (2017, January 27). STEAM Project: Create-an-Animal. Retrieved from https://teachingforward.net/steam-project-create-an-animal/

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Create-an-Animal STEAM Project

Fourth grade students studying animal adaptations participated in a create-an-animal project that combined science, technology and art skills in new ways. Details of the project, lesson materials and student exemplars are shared below.

Create-an-Animal Planning Packet

Students first completed a create-an-animal planning packet which had three sections: Part 1 - Describe the Your Animal, Part 2 - Describe the Adaptations, Part 3 - Sketch Your Animal.

Part 1 - Describe Your Animal. Students came up with a creative name for their invented animal and had to identify the habitat, type of animal, as well as physical and behavioral adaptations.

Phase 2 - Describe the Adaptations. Drawing on what they learned through their science unit on animal adaptations, students apply this understanding to a new, invented animal. They need to consider the physical traits and / behavioral traits that would be necessary for the animal to needed to ensure successful survival.

Phase 3 - Sketch Your Animal. In preparation for sculpting their animal creations in art class, students are tasked with sketching their animal. Teachers encourage kids to add labels to describe various physical details so they can use their sketch as a reference when planning and working on their sculptures.

Incorporating Technology

Students shared their created animals and described the animal's adaptations using technology tools. Depending on the class, fourth graders demonstrated their learning in one of two ways: with a narrated slideshow using Adobe Spark Video or with a digital poster created with Google Slides.

Narrated Slideshow Using Adobe Spark Video

One way student were able to share about their animals was through the creation of a narrated video using Adobe Spark Video. Students photographed both their invented animal sketches as well as their clay animal creations from art class. The images were displayed side-by-side in their slide and students read aloud a descriptive writing piece they composed about their animals.

Digital Poster Using Google Slides

To build technology literacy, we had students enter their packet information into a blank Google Slides template which was formatted as a poster. The template was purposefully bland so that kids would focus on entering the information first, then we walked through basic formatting skills such as formatting font size, style and color as well as adding customized borders and background colors. Students were not allowed to use "Themes" within Google Slides since the focus was to teach them about the formatting toolbar options rather than apply a canned theme. The resulting Google Slide poster was published to the web.

Sharing Student Work During our Art Show

We used the goo.gl Chrome Extension to generate short URLs as well as corresponding QR codes that could be placed next to the animal sculptures. At the upcoming creative arts showcase, parents will be able to scan the QR codes and be directed to the student's digital posters describing their animal adaptations!
Special thanks to Huckleberry Hill School's willing team of Grade 4 teachers for their work on this project: Katie McCarer, Liz George, Heather McLeod, Margaret Asadorian and our amazingly talented art instructor, Kathleen Lorenzo. We're so proud of the kids and looking forward to the creative arts showcase when parents will be able to see the students' creativity and hard work on display!

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Fourth grade students studying animal adaptations participated in a create-an-animal project that combined science, technology and art skills in new ways. Details of the project, lesson materials and student exemplars are shared below. Students first completed a create-an-animal planning packet which had three sections: Part 1 - Describe the Your Animal, Part 2 - Describe the Adaptations, Part 3 - Sketch Your Animal.

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This anchor chart would be used to introduce the concept to students. This would get them thinking about different animals that they have seen and compare and contrast their structures and functions.

Mosquera, A. (2016, February 02). 7 Ideas to Teach Animal Adaptations. Retrieved from https://thesciencepenguin.com/2014/06/time-to-teach-animal-adaptations.html

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This activity gives the students a chance to understand how animals could see prey in different environments and how camouflage will protect them from being eaten by the predator.

B. (n.d.). Birds and Worms. Retrieved from https://www.washcoll.edu/live/files/4258-birds-and-worms

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This activity will be used to show students how some beaks would be ideal in different habitats and how birds eat certain foods because of their beak. This activity will show students why some birds may go extinct in certain habitats because of the lack of ability to feed.

Bird Beaks. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://sciencenetlinks.com/lessons/bird-beaks/

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In this lesson, students will explore the relationship between a bird's beak and its ability to find food and survive in a given environment.

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Weird and Wonderful: Attack and Defense: Astonishing Animals, Bizarre Behavior

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Weird and Wonderful: Attack and Defense: Astonishing Animals, Bizarre Behavior

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This book will be used to show students real world examples of different behaviors that animals do to survive.

Riley, K. (2011). Attack and defense: Astonishing animals, bizarre behavior. Kingfisher.

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This website will be used to show students what different animals migrate and where they go at what time of the year. This will gives students a chance to get involved with tracking the migratory patterns of specific animals that migrate to South Carolina as well.

Welcome to Journey North. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://journeynorth.org/

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This game will be used to give students a real application of how scientists identify plants. This game lets students go through the process that scientists would.

Plant Identification- Alice Ferguson Foundation. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://fergusonfoundation.org/btw-students/plant-identification/

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Plant Identification " Alice Ferguson Foundation

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Copyright © 2018 Alice Ferguson Foundation. 2001 Bryan Point Road, Accokeek, Maryland 20607. [email protected]

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Taxonomy: Classification and Naming of Living Things

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Taxonomy: Classification and Naming of Living Things

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This video will be used to introduce the different levels of taxonomy to students.

Taxonomy: Classification and Naming of Living Things. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://study.com/academy/lesson/taxonomy-classification-and-naming-of-living-things.html

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Overview of Taxonomy

Ever heard of a roly poly? What about a potato bug? A pill bug? Wood louse? All of these names are actually common names for the same organism. Imagine how confusing it would be to keep track of all living things if different people used their own names. For scientists, the use of common names and different languages started to make the study of life more complicated than it already was.

In order to create one system that could be used universally, Carolus Linnaeus developed binomial nomenclature . This is a system that uses two names to identify an organism. Specifically, it uses the genus and species names. We'll look at what that means a little later, but let's first look at how binomial nomenclature is used. In order to correctly write a name in this system, the first letter of the genus must be capitalized and the entire name must be written in italics. For example, the scientific name for a house cat is Felis catus. For the common goldfish, it is Carassius auratus.

During his studies, Linnaeus classified and named over 11,000 organisms. He based his classification on morphology, which is basically what an organism looks like. The chart below shows the morphology of leaves. While we now use genetics to classify organisms, Linnaeus is still one of the most memorable people involved in taxonomy, which is the study of naming and classifying organisms.

Hierarchical Classification

Now that we know why scientific names are used and how they are written, let's look at the hierarchical system of creating these names. Linnaeus developed a system that went from broadest to most specific. The levels of classification he used are: kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species. You can see that genus and species are the two most specific categories, which is why they are used in binomial nomenclature to identify an organism. A good way to remember the order of classification from broadest to most specific is to use a mnemonic device. While there are countless mnemonic devices out there, I always remember the order using: Kings Play Chess On Fat Guys' S tomachs. The first letter of each word corresponds to the first letter of each level of organization, making it easy to remember.

A good way to think of how this system helps us identify groups of related organisms is to compare it to your address. You could identify very broadly where you live by just providing the continent, but you could also very specifically provide your house or apartment number. Let's look at an example of this comparing an address to the levels of organization used by Linnaeus. We can compare kingdom with the continent, phylum with the country, class with the state, order with the zip code, family with city, genus with street, and species with apartment number. We see here how this all lines up and helps to identify different levels. We could talk about all of the members of the same class just as we could talk about all of the people within one state, while you could more specifically talk about one species like you could talk about the people living in the same house.

The Six Kingdoms

A long time ago, scientists used just two kingdoms for the classification of living things: plants and animals. As our understanding of life has changed over the past few centuries, we have revised the kingdoms to reflect this. Currently, we use a six-kingdom setup. The kingdoms are: Archaebacteria, Eubacteria, Protista, Fungi, Plants, and Animals. Each kingdom has specific characteristics allowing taxonomists to accurately group organisms.

We will look at the importance and evolutionary history of these six kingdoms later. For now, let's just distinguish between the six different kingdoms. They are classified based on their cell type and number as well as how they get food.

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taxonomy: classification and naming of living things - video & lesson transcript | study.com

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Taxonomy: Classification and Naming of Living Things - Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com

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Ever heard of a roly poly? What about a potato bug? A pill bug? Wood louse? All of these names are actually common names for the same organism. Imagine how confusing it would be to keep track of all living things if different people used their own names.

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Characteristics of Living Things Jeopardy 

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Characteristics of Living Things Jeopardy 

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This game will be used to help students review material about animals.

Characteristics of Living Things Jeopardy. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.superteachertools.us/jeopardyx/jeopardy-review-game-live.php?gamefile=318399&playid=1124884

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characteristics of living things jeopardy review

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characteristics of living things review game

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Characteristics of living things Live Review Game

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Characteristics of living things Jeopardy Style Review Game

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This website will explain to students what causes these behaviors and what some behaviors could be. It gives students examples that they would have seen first hand.

Intro to animal behavior. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.khanacademy.org/science/biology/behavioral-biology/animal-behavior/a/intro-to-animal-behavior

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What exactly counts as behavior? What triggers behaviors? Are they hard-wired in animals' genes, or learned based on experience?

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These photos will be used to show students how good camouflage can protect animals in certain habitats.

Madag, A., Guerra, J., Rose, E. I., B, D., L, J., Duvekot, P., . . . Peterson, T. (n.d.). 65 Unbelievable Examples of Animal Camouflage That Will Make You Look Twice. Retrieved from https://www.boredpanda.com/amazing-wild-animal-camouflage-nature/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=organic

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This article and video will be used to show students the differences of endothermic and ectothermic animals and examples of each.

Endotherms & ectotherms. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.khanacademy.org/science/biology/principles-of-physiology/metabolism-and-thermoregulation/a/endotherms-ectotherms

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The difference between endotherms and ectotherms. How to read graphs related to endotherms and ectotherms.

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This website will be used to show students the difference between invertebrates and vertebrates and give students examples of each.

Invertebrate vs Vertebrate. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.diffen.com/difference/Invertebrate_vs_Vertebrate

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Differences in Physical Characteristics

Invertebrates have no backbone, while vertebrates have a well-developed internal skeleton of cartilage and bone and a highly developed brain that is enclosed by a skull. A nerve cord is enclosed by vertebrae - individual bones that make up a vertebrate's spine. Vertebrates have well-developed sensory organs, a respiratory system with either gills or lungs, and a bilateral symmetry with an advanced nervous system that further distinguishes them from invertebrates.

Vertebrates are divided into two groups: animals without jaws ( Agnatha) and animals with jaws ( Gnathostomata). While most vertebrates can move and are heterotrophic (i.e., cannot make their own food), some invertebrates may be able to make their own food.

Due to lack of a supportive system, a majority of invertebrates are small. Invertebrates have two basic body plans: one is the radial symmetry plan (a circular shape arranged around a central mouth, similar to the way spokes radiate out from the hub of a wheel), which includes animals who spend their adult lives fastened in one place; and the bilateral symmetry plan (right and left halves that mirror each other and typically have a definite front and back end). This includes animals who move in search of food.

Differences in Habitat

Both types of animals live in a variety of habitats, but vertebrates can essentially suit themselves in all habitats easily. The highly developed nervous system and internal skeletons of vertebrates allow them to adapt to land, sea, and air.

Nevertheless, invertebrates are also found in a vast range of habitats, from forests and deserts, to caves and seabed mud.

Population of Vertebrates vs. Invertebrates

To date, nearly 2 million species of invertebrates have been identified. These 2 million species make up about 98% of the total animals identified in the entire animal kingdom, i.e., 98 out of 100 types of animals in the world today are invertebrates. On the other hand, vertebrates only form 2% of the animal species. Human beings are vertebrates.

Differences in Classification

Vertebrates are classified into fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. In contrast, invertebrates include sponges, coelenterates (Ctenophora or comb jellies; and the Cnidaria or coral animals, true jellies, sea anemones, sea pens, and their allies), echinoderms (starfish, sea urchins, sea cucumbers), worms, mollusks ( squid, octopus, snails, bivalves), and arthropods (insects).

Differences in Size

One of the noticeable differences between vertebrates and invertebrates is their size. Invertebrates, such as worms, shellfish, and insects, are small and slow-moving because they lack effective ways to support a large body and the muscles needed to power it. But there are a few exceptions, like the squid, which may be close to 15 meters (50 feet) in size. Vertebrates have a versatile support system. As a result, vertebrates have the capability to develop faster and bigger bodies than invertebrates.

Adaptation to the Environment

In contrast to invertebrates, vertebrates have a highly developed nervous system. With the help of their specialized nerve-fiber system, they can react very quickly to changes in their surroundings, giving them a competitive edge. Compared to vertebrates (animals with backbones), most invertebrates have simple nervous systems, and they behave almost entirely by instinct. This system works well most of the time, even though these animals are often incapable of learning from their mistakes. Moths, for example, repeatedly flutter around bright lights, even at the risk of getting burned. Notable exceptions are octopuses and their close relatives, which are thought to be among the most intelligent animals in the invertebrate world.

Similarities Between Vertebrates and Invertebrates

The feature uniting all chordates (all vertebrates and some invertebrates) is that at some stage in their lives, all have a flexible supporting rod, a notochord, that runs through the length of their bodies. In a majority of chordates, the notochord is replaced by a series of interlocking bones - vertebrae - during early development. These presence of these bones is what determines whether an animal is a vertebrate (has vertebrae) or invertebrate (does not have vertebrae).

Evolution of Invertebrates

As multicellular organisms, invertebrates represent several steps along the road to the organizational complexity that makes most organisms what they are today. The first life evolved in the form of single cells in water. Invertebrates were the initial few examples of multicellular organisms that evolved in water. Invertebrates set the path for the evolution of other organisms as simple transformations started taking place (see microevolution). These simple changes led to complex beings in the form of vertebrates.

References

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What's the difference between Invertebrate and Vertebrate? Animals can be classified into two main groups: vertebrates and invertebrates. The main difference between vertebrates and invertebrates is that invertebrates, like insects and flatworms, do not have a backbone or a spinal column. Examples of vertebrates i...

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This website will be used to give students a deeper understanding of taxonomy and the history of it. The students will be able to understand how scientist came up with classifying animals.

Taxonomy. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://basicbiology.net/biology-101/taxonomy

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Taxonomy is the practice of identifying different organisms, classifying them into categories, and naming them. All organisms, both living and extinct, are classified into distinct groups with other similar organisms and given a scientific name.

The classification of organisms has various hierarchical categories. Categories gradually shift from being very broad and including many different organisms to very specific and identifying single species.

Taxonomic categories

There are eight distinct taxonomic categories. These are: Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species.

With each step down in classification, organisms are split into more and more specific groups.

For example, all of the animals in the Kingdom Animalia are split into multiple phyla (plural of phylum). All of the animals in the phylum Chordata are split into multiple classes such as mammals, reptiles, and amphibians. The broadest category splits all organisms into three groups called 'Domains'. The three Domains of life are

Bacteria, Archaea and Eukaryota.

Kingdom

For a long time, all life was separated into five or six kingdoms. These included kingdoms such as animals, plants, fungi, protists, archaea, and bacteria.

With new genetic data, we now know that some protists are more closely related to animals, plants, and fungi than they are to other protists. This suggests that the protist kingdom could be separated into multiple kingdoms. Thoughts are similar for the bacteria and archaea kingdoms.

Phylum

A phylum (plural phyla) is still a very broad classification but it splits kingdoms into multiple groups. An example of phyla from the animal kingdom is Arthropoda which includes all insects, spiders, crustaceans, and more. All vertebrate animals belong to one phylum called 'Chordata'. Invertebrates are separated into many different phyla.

Class

A class is the next level down. As mentioned earlier some classes from the phylum Chordata include mammals, reptiles, and amphibians. Arthropod classes include the likes of insects and arachnids (spiders, mites, and scorpions).

Order and family

From class, organisms are placed into an Order and then a Family. Using grasses as an example from the plant kingdom, they belong to the order Poales and the family Poaceae.

Genus and species

The final two categories are genus and species. The genus and species that an organism belongs to are how an organism receives its scientific name. This naming system is called 'binomial nomenclature' and was invented by a brilliant biologist named Carl Linnaeus.

An identified species is placed into a specific group in each of these categories. For example, the taxonomic classification of humans is:

To remember the order of the taxonomic hierarchy from domain to species, people often use mnemonics to make it easier. The phrase that I was taught and still use to help me remember is 'King Phillip Came Over From Germany Swimming'. There are many different phrases people have come up with. If you're not keen on the sentence I use and want another one, take a look at these taxonomy mnemonics .

Carl Linnaeus

Carl Linnaeus was a Swedish naturalist from the 18th century and is considered the father of taxonomy. It was Linnaeus who first began to separate organisms into hierarchical categories. He also developed the system that we use to name new species called 'binomial nomenclature'. Linnaeus is credited with identifying over 10,000 different plant and animal species in his lifetime, more than any other biologist.

Systema Naturae

When Linnaeus developed his system of hierarchical categories, he called it 'Systema Naturae'. It contained three kingdoms, classes, orders, genera, and species. We have since added two more categories - domains and phyla.

Linnaeus's original classification had three kingdoms - animals, plants, and minerals (natural, non-living elements). We now only use this system for classifying organisms and we have since separated all of life into more than two kingdoms.

Binomial nomenclature

Binomial nomenclature is the method that we use to uniquely name every different organism on Earth, living or extinct. All organisms have a scientific name that includes two Latin words.

The two words are made from the names of the genus the species belongs to and a second word to separate each of the species within the same genus. The second word is known as the 'specific epithet'. Hence, the scientific names of all organisms are made from the name of their genus and a specific epithet.

For example, the scientific name given to humans includes their genus and the specific epithet The overall name is Homo sapiens .

Scientific names are also written in either or underlined.

Taxonomy is not a perfect science and, as you will find out, there is a lot of disagreement and uncertainty about the structure of taxonomic classifications. In general, however, taxonomy is a great way to quickly learn about how an organism slots into the tree of life.

Last edited: 22 April 2018
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Taxonomy is the practice of identifying different organisms, classifying them into categories, and naming them. All organisms, both living and extinct, are classified into distinct groups with other similar organisms and given a scientific name. The classification of organisms has various hierarchical categories.

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This video will be used to show students how scientist classify different organisms.

Education, F. -. (2016, October 09). How are organisms classified? | Biology for All | FuseSchool. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnvlMlopu2A

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How Are Organisms Classified? | Evolution | Biology | FuseSchool

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Standard 6.L.4: The student will demonstrate an understanding of how scientists classify organisms and how the structures, processes, behaviors, and adaptations of animals allow them to survive.