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Grade 3. In 15 lessons spanning 18 class sessions, students explore the topic of what animals need to survive and how animals are affected when their habitat changes. Module includes a teacher guide, 10 Student Activity Guides, 16 Smithsonian Science Stories student readers, and enough materials for 32 students to use 1 time.

Grade 3. Module Highlights: In 15 lessons spanning 18 class sessions, students explore the topic of what animals need to survive and how animals are affected when their habitat changes. In the first focus question, students collect evidence from videos to make a claim that animals need air, food, water, and shelter to survive. They use this knowledge to design and test different classroom habitats where live roly-polies (pill bugs) can survive. In the second focus question, students analyze data from camera traps on animals living in different habitats. They read about marine habitats and make a claim about how well a marine animal would survive in a different habitat. In the third focus question, students compare fossils with modern-day animals to make a claim about the type of habitat the animals lived in. They compare and contrast an extinct animal with a living animal using information from a reading. In the fourth focus question, students use games to simulate change in habitats and to make a claim that when habitats change, animal populations can go down. They learn through a reading that wildlife corridors can help protect animals when their habitat changes. In the final focus question, students engage in a two-part summative assessment. In the written assessment, students analyze data and construct explanations about how well different animals survive in a city, and what fossils can tell us about habitat change. Students are then challenged to apply what they have learned about science and engineering to build and test a tunnel that can stop salamanders from being killed when crossing roads.

This module includes a teacher guide, 10 Student Activity Guides, 16 Smithsonian Science Stories student readers, and enough materials for 32 students to use 1 time.

Student Readers Available HERE

Next Generation Science Standards*
Performance Expectations

• 3-5-ETS1-1: Define a simple design problem reflecting a need or a want that includes specified criteria for success and constraints on materials, time, or cost.
• 3-5-ETS1-2: Generate and compare multiple possible solutions to a problem based on how well each is likely to meet the criteria and constraints of the problem.
• 3-5-ETS1-3: Plan and carry out fair tests in which variables are controlled and failure points are considered to identify aspects of the model or prototype that can be improved.
• 3-LS2-1: Construct an argument that some animals form groups that help members survive.
• 3-LS4-1: Analyze and interpret data from fossils to provide evidence of the organisms and the environments in which they lived long ago.
• 3-LS4-3: Construct an argument with evidence that in a particular habitat some organisms can survive well, some survive less well, and some cannot survive at all.
• 3-LS4-4: Make a claim about the merit of a solution to a problem caused when the environment changes and the types of plants and animals that live there may change.

Disciplinary Core Ideas
ETS1.A: Defining and delimiting engineering problems

• Possible solutions to a problem are limited by available materials and resources (constraints). The success of a designed solution is determined by considering the desired features of the solution (criteria). Different proposals for solutions can be compared on the basis of how well each one meets the specified criteria for success or how well each takes the constraints into account.

ETS1.B: Developing possible solutions:

• Research on a problem should be carried out before beginning to design a solution.
• At whatever stage, communicating with peers about proposed solutions is an important part of the design process and can lead to improved designs.
• Tests are often designed to identify failure points or difficulties, which suggest the elements of a design that need to be improved.

ETS1.C: Optimizing the design solution:

• Different solutions need to be tested in order to determine which of them best solves the problem, given the criteria and constraints.

LS2.D: Social interactions and group behavior

• 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.

LS4.A: Evidence of common ancestry and diversity

• Some kinds of plants and animals that once lived on Earth are no longer found anywhere.
• Fossils provide evidence about the types of organisms that lived long ago and also about the nature of their environments.

LS4.C: Adaptation

• For any particular environment, some kinds of organisms survive well, some survive less well, and some can't survive at all.

LS2.C: Ecosystem dynamics, functioning, and resilience

• When the environment changes in ways that affect a place's physical characteristics, temperature, or availability of resources, some organisms survive and reproduce, some move to new locations, yet others move into the transformed environment, and some die.

LS4.D: Biodiversity and humans

• Populations live in a variety of habitats and change in those habitats affects the organisms living there.

Science and Engineering Practices
Focal:

• Analyzing and interpreting data
• Constructing explanations
• Obtaining, evaluating, and communicating information

Supporting:

• Defining problems
• Developing and using models
• Planning and carrying out investigations
• Using mathematics and computational thinking
• Designing solutions
• Engaging in argument from evidence

Crosscutting Concepts
Focal:

• Patterns
• Cause and effect
• Stability and change

Supporting:


• Systems and system models

Common Core State Standards
English Language Arts Connections
Speaking and listening:

• Comprehension and collaboration (SL.1.3)
• Comprehension and collaboration (SL3.1)
• Comprehension and collaboration (SL3.2)
• Comprehension and collaboration (SL3.3)
• Presentation of knowledge and ideas (SL.3.4)

Reading:

• Key ideas and details (RI.3.1)
• Integration of knowledge and ideas (RI.3.8)
• Range of reading and level of text complexity (RI.3.10)

Writing:

• Text types and purposes (W.3.1.B)
• Text types and purposes (W.3.3)
• Research to build and present knowledge (W.3.8)

Math Connections
Geometry:

• Reason with shapes and their attributes (3.G.A.2)

Operations and algebraic thinking:

• Represent and solve problems involving multiplication and division (3.OA.A.1)

Measurement and data:

• Represent and interpret data (3.MD.B.3)

Number and operations in base ten:

• Use place value understanding and properties of operations to perform multi-digit arithmetic (3.NBT.A.2)

Lesson Summaries
Focus Question 1: What do animals need to survive?
Lesson 1: Animal Survivor
Animals need food, water, and shelter to survive.
Students identify the problem of changes to habitat causing animal populations to decline and take part in a video investigation to find out what animals need to survive.
Lesson 2: Roly-Poly Hotel Part 1
A habitat needs to provide a source of food, water, and shelter.
Students design two classroom habitats where roly-polies can survive and plan a fair test to determine the effect of changing one material and to decide which habitat is the best solution to the problem.
Lesson 3: Roly-Poly Hotel Part 2
Different solutions need to be tested to see which one best solves the problem.
Students collect data from testing two habitats to make a claim about the effect of the material that was changed and the habitat that best meets the needs of roly-polies.
Lesson 4: Teamwork
Living in groups helps some animals survive.
Students collect evidence from a text to construct a claim that being in a group can have many effects that may help an animal survive.
Focus Question 2: Why do animals live in different habitats?
Lesson 5: Camera Trap
Different numbers and types of animals are found in different habitats.
Students look for patterns in camera trap data to identify mammals living in a woodland habitat.
Lesson 6: Town and Country
Some habitats meet the needs of particular animals better than other habitats.
Students use graphs to analyze camera trap data from three different habitats and use evidence from a field guide text to explain the patterns in the kind and number of animals seen in each habitat.
Lesson 7: Under the Sea
In a given habitat, some animals can survive well, some survive less well, and others cannot survive at all.
Students communicate information obtained from a text by creating a comic strip showing how a marine animal would be affected by visiting a new type of habitat.
Focus Question 3: What can fossils tell us about animals and habitats?
Lesson 8: She Sorts Seashells
There are similarities and differences between fossil organisms and modern organisms.
Students analyze patterns in seashells and compare and contrast them with a fossil.
Lesson 9: Fossil CSI
Evidence from fossils shows that some habitats have changed dramatically over long periods of time.
Students analyze and interpret data on fossils and make a claim about whether the habitat where the fossil organisms lived has changed over a long period of time.
Lesson 10: Dinosaur Dig Site
Some types of organisms that once lived are now extinct.
Students collect information from a text on patterns of similarities and differences between an extinct animal and a modern animal. They use information in the text to make a claim about the kind of habitat the extinct animal lived in.
Focus Question 4: What happens to animals when their habitat changes?
Lesson 11: Move, Survive, or Die!
When their environment changes, some organisms thrive, some must move, and others die.
Students use a board game as a model to collect evidence to make a claim that a change in habitat can cause animal populations to go up or down.
Lesson 12: Tiger, Tiger
Land development can make it harder for animals to access resources and their population can decrease.
Students use a movement game as a model to construct an explanation for why land development causes tiger populations to decline.
Lesson 13: Wildlife Corridors
Wildlife corridors are one solution that can help protect animals from the negative effects of land development.
Students argue using information from texts that wildlife corridors can be effective in helping protect animals when their habitat changes.
Design Challenge
Focus Question 5: How can we reduce salamander deaths on roads?
Lesson 14: Salamander Tunnel Part 1
Problems are defined in terms of their criteria and constraints.
Students define the problem of salamanders being killed on roads and work together to design a prototype that, as a complete
system, meets the constraints and criteria of the problem.
Lesson 15: Salamander Tunnel Part 2
Different solutions need to be tested to see which one best solves the problem.
Students build their prototype and test it using roly-polies as a model for salamanders. They use data from their test to argue for how well their prototype solved the problem, and which parts of their design may have caused successes and failures.

*Next Generation Science Standards® is a registered trademark of WestEd. Neither WestEd nor the lead states and partners that developed the Next Generation Science Standards were involved in the production of this product, and do not endorse it.