Insects

Using a familiar insect (such as an ant) encourage students to respond to each other in conversation about the insect. As students learn about other insects, this activity can be expanded to include comparing two or more insects. 

Choose a species of insect and write an acrostic poem, with phrases or sentences highlighting facts about that insect.

Read about an unfamiliar insect such as one from another part of the world. Select new words and phrases from the text and determine the meaning based on context clues,  word parts, Greek and Latin roots, or dictionaries and glossaries.  

Watch an ant video from BBC Earth: Ant Attack, such as "Building a New Home." Pause the video and attempt to count the number of ants in one frame. Discuss why counting insects is so difficult.

Ants can carry 50 times their own weight. Determine how much weight a fourth grade volunteer student could carry if they were an ant. Weigh the volunteer using bathroom scales, and then identify the correct “ant” load by multiplying by 50. Using books that have been previously weighed, have the volunteer pick up sequential sized stacks until they are unable to lift (use caution that the student does not injure themselves.) Identify the true weight of the student's last load. If appropriate, determine the relation to the student's measured weight.

Research the wing speed of several insects and create a ratio table of insect size to repetitions per minute (rpm) to see if there is a pattern. Create another table comparing number of wings to rpm. 

All animals need food in order to live and grow. They obtain their food from plants or from other animals. Examples of observations could include the different kinds of food needed by different types of animals and that all living things need water.

Living things need water, air, and resources from the land. They live in places that have the things they need. Plants, animals, and their surroundings make up a system.

Things that people do can affect the world around them. People can reduce their effects on the land, water, air, and other living things.

All organisms have external parts. Different animals use their body parts in different ways to see; hear; grasp objects; protect themselves; move from place to place; and seek, find, and take in food, water, and air. Animals have body parts that capture and convey different kinds of information needed for growth and survival. Animals respond to these inputs with behaviors that help them survive.

Individuals of the same kind of plant or animal are recognizable as similar but can also vary in many ways.

Some plants can depend on animals, wind, and water for pollination or to move their seeds around. Emphasis is on the interaction between animals and plant.

There are many different kinds of living things in any area, and they exist in different places on land and in water. Emphasis is on the diversity of living things in each of a variety of different habitats.

Reproduction is essential to the continued existence of every kind of organism. Plants and animals have unique and diverse life cycles. Changes organisms go through during their life form a pattern.

Being part of a group helps animals obtain food, defend themselves, and cope with changes. Groups may serve different functions and vary dramatically in size.

Examples of evidence could include needs, characteristics of the organisms, and habitats involved. The organisms and their habitat make up a system in which the parts depend on each other.

Animals have various body systems with specific functions for sustaining life: skeletal, circulatory, respiratory, muscular, digestive, etc.

Different sense receptors are specialized for particular kinds of information, which may be then processed by the animal’s brain. Animals are able to use their perceptions and memories to guide their actions.

The energy released from food was once energy from the Sun. The energy was captured by plants in the chemical process that forms plant matter. Food provides animals with the materials they need for body repair and growth and the energy they need to maintain body warmth and for motion.

Populations live in a variety of habitats, and change in those habitats affects the organisms living there. When the environment changes in ways that affect a place’s physical characteristics, temperature, or availability of resources, some organisms survive and reproduce, others move to new locations, yet others move into the transformed environment, and some die. Examples of environmental changes could include changes in land characteristics, water distribution, temperature, food, and other organisms.

The food of almost any kind of animal can be traced back to plants. Organisms are related in food webs in which some animals eat plants for food and other animals eat the animals that eat plants. Decomposition eventually restores (recycles) some materials back to the soil.  Organisms can survive only in environments in which their particular needs are met. A healthy ecosystem is one in which multiple species of different types are each able to meet their needs in a relatively stable web of life. Newly introduced species can damage the balance of an ecosystem.  

In multicellular organisms, the body is a system of multiple interacting subsystems. These subsystems are groups of cells that work together to form tissues and organs that are specialized for particular body functions.

Living things share certain characteristics. (These include response to environment, reproduction, energy use, growth and development, life cycles, made of cells, etc.) Organisms reproduce, either sexually or asexually, and transfer their genetic information to their offspring. Examples should include both biotic and abiotic items, and should be defended using accepted characteristics of life.

Organisms, and populations of organisms, are dependent on their environmental interactions both with other living things and with nonliving factors. In any ecosystem, organisms and populations with similar requirements for food, water, oxygen, or other resources may compete with each other for limited resources, access to which consequently constrains their growth and reproduction. Growth of organisms and population increases are limited by access to resources. 

Predatory interactions may reduce the number of organisms or eliminate whole populations of organisms. Mutually beneficial interactions, in contrast, may become so interdependent that each organism requires the other for survival. Although the species involved in competitive, predatory, and mutually beneficial interactions vary across ecosystems, the patterns of interactions of organisms with their environments are shared. Emphasis is on predicting consistent patterns of interactions in different ecosystems in terms of the relationships among and between organisms.

Food webs are models that demonstrate how matter and energy is transferred between producers, consumers, and decomposers as the three groups interact within an ecosystem. Transfers of matter into and out of the physical environment occur at every level. Decomposers recycle nutrients from dead plant or animal matter back to the soil in terrestrial environments or to the water in aquatic environments. The atoms that make up the
organisms in an ecosystem are cycled repeatedly between the living and nonliving parts of the ecosystem. 

Ecosystems are dynamic in nature; their characteristics can vary over time. Disruptions to any physical or biological component of an ecosystem can lead to shifts in all its populations. Emphasis is on recognizing patterns in data and making warranted inferences about changes in populations, and on evaluating empirical evidence supporting arguments about changes to ecosystems.

Biodiversity describes the variety of species found in Earth's terrestrial and oceanic ecosystems. The completeness or integrity of an ecosystem's biodiversity is often used as a measure of its health. Changes in biodiversity can influence humans’ resources as well as ecosystem services that humans rely on. There are systematic processes for evaluating solutions with respect to how well they meet the criteria and constraints of a problem.

Natural selection leads to the predominance of certain traits in a population, and the suppression of others. Emphasis is on using concepts of natural selection in animals, such as overproduction of offspring, passage of time, variation in a population, selection of favorable traits, and heritability of traits.

Adaptation by natural selection acting over generations is one important process by which species change over time in response to changes in environmental conditions. Traits that support successful survival and reproduction in the new environment become more common; those that do not become less common.  

Human activities can positively and negatively influence the biosphere, sometimes altering natural habitats and ecosystems. Technology and engineering can potentially help us best manage natural resources as populations increase.