By Annette Whipple

Published October 15, 2024

Grades 3-5

Book Summary:

This book is composed of beautiful, bright, large photographs and some small punny illustrations that guide readers through a series of questions about sharks. The book is structured in two page spreads with a guiding question on each, and includes a variety of text features: photos, captions, speech bubbles, diagrams, fact or fiction spread, and a glossary.

The author answers many questions a reader might have about sharks: Are sharks fish? Where do they live? How do they find their food?

I particularly enjoyed that this book was set up with easy guidance into an important topic: what characteristics do animals have that help them survive?

I learned several new facts: sharks are fish, but don't have scales. Instead they have teeth like denticles that cover their bodies to help water glide over them. Additionally, they don't have swim bladders (air filled sacs that keep them afloat). Instead they have huge oily livers that help them float, as well as lightweight skeletons made of cartilage rather than dense bone.

The book includes beautiful closeups that can hook any reader into wanting to learn more about different types of sharks and what makes them unique. Perhaps my favorite is the Sensational Sharks spread at the back of the book, which shares an interesting fact about an adaptation unique to a dozen different species of sharks. The text is visually engaging, and packed with information, while not overwhelming the reader with text.

Rationale:

In grade 4, the NGSS science standards require that

students determine how internal and external structures support the survival, growth, behavior, and reproduction of plants and animals (NGSS 4-LS1.A). Students learn that different sense receptors are specialized pathways to transmit particular information to the brain, and therefore animals are able to use their perceptions and memories to guide their actions (NGSS 4-LS1.D).

This text is new (published in 2024), and is visually appealing to even the most reluctant reader, with engaging photos and fonts, with a touch of humor, illustrations, and speech bubbles. While the intrigue of sharks has many students coming with basic knowledge of the species, this text allows readers to dig deeper into what sets different species apart, and what makes them different from other species of fish.

This text can be used for teaching about text structure and visual literacy in an informational text. The question and answer format sets a purpose for reading on each page, accompanied with photos, labels, close ups and captions, diagrams and labels to help readers dive deeper into the content. Additionally, the author strategically and intentionally places photographs into each section that can support readers' understanding of each topic. There is also a glossary at the end of the book, as well as useful websites to encourage readers to further explore. This book could support a text feature walk, or a text feature search, in which students identify text features and locations, identify their purpose, and connect to learning.

This text could support paragraph analysis. The structure of the book supports the RAP (read, ask, put) paraphrasing strategy, which has students read a paragraph, ask themselves about the main idea and details of the paragraph, and paraphrase that information into their own words.

Additionally, this is a great text for knowledge building. A class can track learning through a KWL chart, activating and sharing background knowledge and generating curiosity around the topic.

Students can specifically track knowledge acquired that relates specifically to structure and function, completing a graphic organizer that guides students to track the question asked in the text, the feature of their species that helps support the activity, and how it helps them survive in their habitat. Students can complete a three column graphic organizer, perhaps labeled Question/Animal Feature/How it helps, to help students connect to the overarching science theme of structure and function. Structure and function with this text can be used in multiple ways--showing the purpose of structure and function through the lens of text structure, as well as structure and function through the lens of biological adaptations. 

By Ed Yong, Adapted by Annmarie Anderson

Illustrated by Rebecca Mills

Published May 13, 2025

Grades 4-8

Book Summary:

This text is an adaption of Ed Yong's award winning book An Immense World. The text explores the diversity of animal senses and contrasts how vastly different animals experience the world than humans. Anderson takes Yong's text and makes it accessible and engaging for middle grade readers.

An overarching theme of the text is the concept umwelt, which refers to the sensory world of an animal based on its own reality and environment. For example, a dog's umwelt is filled with smells, a bat's is shaped by sound, and a bee's includes ultraviolet light. The text creates a sense of awe around the diversity of life and helps readers understand that the world is unique to every creature. The text is filled with fun facts and colorful illustrations, and is structed with informational text features to support developing readers. The text is divided by the five senses, but others are added, such as sensitivity to pain, heat, and vibration. Each section of the text is color coded with vivid page borders that are labeled, making it easy to reference which sense you are in. There are so many interesting and thought provoking facts in this text, but some of the most interesting to me were that sea turtles use earth's electromagnetic field to navigate across oceans to return to the beaches they hatched from, and that most animals that see color can also see UV light which allows them to see patterns in nature that humans cannot.

Rationale:

This text provides plenty of examples of animal adaptations through the lens of animal senses. I would use this text for knowledge building, and it lends itself to a graphic organizer tracking animals, the sense they rely on, and how it helps them survive. This could be done for an extended portion of the book, or coud be done for each particular sense, comparing and contrasting how each animal uses the particular sense for survival. This task could also be done comparing and contrasting how an animal uses its sense and how a human does.

It could be used for vocabulary building and word choice, as it is filled with biology specific content. The author highlights important likely unknown vocabulary words throughout the text. A reader could record these words, define them, and further consider why the word was used and/or how it supports their learning of the topic. The words idenfitied are explicitly identified on each page in a text box titled words to remember. Because the heavy lifting of defining the word is done for them, it allows the reader to think about why the word was strategically used to support understanding. These words could also be used for a sensory word wall in the classroom.

Additionally, chapters can be analyzed by identifying main ideas and details, further demonstrating how text structure supports comprehension in an informational text. Students can annotate a chapter identifying main idea and supporting details, or highlight cause and effect relationships.

An Immense World is written in such a way that it encourages readers to put themselves in the position of the animal exploring their word. This approach builds empathy for both animals as well as others who experience things diffferently. This could be extended to encourage a reader to assume the perspective of an animal they've researched and write a narrative from the animals point of view using sensory details from the animal's experience of their environment.

Because this book is structured to challenge the reader to put themselves in the animal's role, it lends itself to critical thinking about how changes in ecosystems (natural or manmade) can impact animals and their survival mechanisms. An authentic learning activity might be a PSA poster about reducing a human behavior by sharing facts about the animal impacted.

This text might be most beneficial as one of the last texts introduced in a text set as it promotes critical thinking about the complex relationships between animals and their ecosystems, and forces deeper thinking around human impact as well.

Summary:

PBS LearningMedia has produced 6 brief but engaging videos that guide students through animal adaptations. The vidoes emphasize that adaptations reflect an animal's environment. Every creature needs food, water, shelter, and an opportunity to reproduce and as environments change, animals must adapt to meet those needs. Students learn about natural selection and see it in action. Additionally, they learn about the three types of adaptations: physical adaptations, physiological adaptations, and behavioral adaptations.

The students dive into adaptations of the crayfish, and learn important vocabulary such as locomotion, pollutants, and bioindicators. Next, students consider that animals aren't the only living things that adapt, as they learn that plants adapt, too. From retaining moisture to avoiding being eaten, students learn dive even further into the concept of natural selection in the plant world.

Students review animal senses, the role of humans and artifical selection, and what happens when adaptations no longer serve a species. Fun fact: snakes have no legs, but have pelvic bones!

The videos are clear and engaging, light hearted and informative. The concrete examples such as beaks, tails, and ears help make the content memorable for middle grade learners.

Rationale:

This series pairs perfectly with the two texts on adaptation by introducing students to the catagories of animal adaptations and linking the concept of adaptation to environment. This video series provides context for students to consider the animals they have learned about and which category their adaptation falls into. Furthermore, the students can consider a broad perspective of what constitutes an animals enviroment.

The video series lends itself to knowledge building, where a teacher might incorporate a guided notes outline for students to fill in as they watch the series.

Students could go into the viewing by setting a purpose for reading, introducing the following questions beforehand:

• How do adaptations help animals to survive?

• What are three kinds of animals adaptations?  Give an example of each.

• Why do hummingbirds’ beaks and eagles’ beaks have different shapes?

• Why do some animals live in herds? How does that adaptation help them?

• Can you think of any adaptations that help humans to survive?

The videos also lend itself to a great teaching points on word choice and vocabulary, especially around the terms adaptation, physiological, camouflage, and natural selection.

This could also be used to discuss sentence structure. You can choose a "juicy sentence" from the narration in the video and anaylyze it. For example: Snowshoe hares have short ears to retain heat in the cold.

Analyze the sentence by determining the subject, verb, and purpose. Ask how the phrase “to retain heat” helps the readers. Encourage students to write their own sentence using sentence frames to support their writing.

(Animal) has (feature) to (purpose).
Example: A fish has overlapping scales to reduce water resistance.