Science 9

Optional Unit: Diversity of Life

Unit overview

Too often we walk past the wonders of nature, never noticing them until a companion points them out. So many things we take for granted or ignore are vital links in the web of life which makes this earth habitable. This unit encourages students to observe what is around them by asking them to locate, compare, and categorize organisms.

This theme is developed throughout the grade 1 to grade 8 curriculum. Students use their skills of observation and classification to identify and discuss diversity.

Science writing and reading activities, as discussed in this Guide, should be incorporated into each lesson. Writing in personal reflective journals, reading from newspapers, and reporting on the activities of science class in a variety of ways are only three strategies through which students may refine their understanding of the concepts of science and develop their ability to communicate through the written word.

Science challenge, as described in this Guide, is meant to extend students' critical and creative thinking abilities in the context of the science concepts being studied. Activities involving science challenge should be incorporated into science lessons in each unit. The challenge is intended to give each student a chance to investigate an area of interest in more depth than would be possible for all students in a class to do. Science challenge is a key strategy for bringing the Adaptive Dimension to the classroom, and for encouraging independent learning.

Factors of scientific literacy that should be emphasized

• A3 holistic
• A7 unique
• A9 human/culture related
• B2 interaction
• B4 organism
• B12 conservation
• B13 energy-matter
• B14 cycle
• B16 system
• B18 population
• B26 evolution
• C1 classifying
• C6 questioning
• C9 inferring
• C14 problem solving
• D2 scientists and technologists are human
• D5 public understanding gap
• E2 using natural environments
• F3 search for data and their meaning
• F8 consideration of premises
• G5 avocation

Concept development

• grade 1
  • characteristics of plants and animals
• grade 2
  • adaptations of plants and animals to their habitats
• grade 3
  • food webs
  • diversity in plant structures
• grade 4
  • characteristics and interrelationships of vertebrates and invertebrates
• grade 6
  • how ecosystems work
• grade 7
  • common characteristics of living things
• grade 8
  • structural interrelationships in ecosystems
  • adaptive characteristics of organisms

Foundational and learning objectives for Science and the Common Essential Learnings

1. Understand how classification systems are created.
   1. Identify and describe the appearance, behaviour, and habitat of organisms in the locality of the school .
   2. Group organisms native to Saskatchewan in several different ways.
   3. Use a dichotomous key to identify some organisms.
2. Recognize the adaptive value of species diversity .
   1. Discuss the origins and adaptive value of a diversity of species.
   2. Compare intraspecies diversity and interspecies diversity.
   3. Identify those factors which tend to reduce diversity.
   4. Debate the implications of human alteration of the ecosystems.
3. Develop abilities to access knowledge. (IL)
   1. Identify and get help in using resources which are not familiar.
   2. Use resources individually, in a one-to-one relationship with another person, and in small groups.
   3. Contribute to a catalogue of available resources, such as people, equipment, sites, or experiences.
   4. Acquire information at one level and apply it in a different context.

1. Investigate how the Aboriginal peoples of North America classified plants and animals. Compare that system to the one created by scientists trained in the science developed in western Europe.

   Factors: A7, A9, B16, B18, C1, C6, D2, E2, F3
   Objectives: 1.2, 3.1
   Assessment Techniques: written assignments, presentations, extended open response test items
   Instructional Methods: research project, reading for meaning

2. List the plant and animal species that class members identify in their community. Keep updating this list as the students become more proficient in identifying and more observant in noticing species. Initial or rare sightings might be annotated with the location, conditions, and other information about the sighting.

   Factors: B4, B18, C1, E2, G5
   Objectives: 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 3.3
   Assessment Techniques: anecdotal records, performance assessments
   Instructional Methods: field trips, homework, reading for meaning

3. Select a plant or animal native to your area. Keep in mind all sizes and types of organisms - not just the large or common ones.

   Prepare a poster showing a sketch or picture of the plant or animal you have picked. Include on the poster brief descriptions of the organism's habitat, place in the food web, special adaptations that help it survive, and any information you think is of special interest. Mount the posters in the classroom to help others become acquainted with the organism you picked.

   Factors: B2, B4, C9, F3, F8
   Objectives: 2.1, 3.4
   Assessment Techniques: presentations, peer assessment, extended open response test items
   Instructional Methods: research projects, reading for meaning

4. Ploughing prairie and planting wheat on the land decreases the diversity of plant life in that area. Why does it also decrease the diversity of animal life? What are the positive aspects of the conversion of huge amounts of land in Saskatchewan from prairie to land for growing grain? What are the negative aspects?

5. Antibiotics used to fight infections gradually become less effective over a period of time. Members of the species targeted by the antibiotic show resistance to being affected. How does this happen?

6. Design a plant that you think would be ideally suited to life in your area. Sketch a picture of what the plant would look like and explain why it has each of the characteristics you gave it.

   Repeat the above task for an animal.

7. Select an area of the schoolyard or an accessible area near the schoolyard that has some plant growth, and is familiar to most students. Estimate the number of plant species that can be distinguished in that area. Go to the area and do a species count.

8. For some public area near your school, create an interpretive guidebook. The book should contain sketches and names of the common plants and animals that can be identified in the area, along with tips on how to recognize them. The book could be structured as a nature path book, with a fixed starting point, path through the area, and ending point or it could be a wanderer's guide to the area.

9. Bring as many different leaves as you can from home. Put your leaves together with the leaves your partners bring and sort them to determine the number of species of plants represented. Then classify them in a dichotomous key. Identify as many species as possible.

10. During the fall collect several pizza boxes or shoeboxes full of poplar or aspen leaves. (They can be used right away or stored until this unit is done. If they are to be stored, fill any empty space in the box with old newspapers so that there is pressure on the leaves to keep them from curling up as they dry.) Decide what dimensions are appropriate to measure to compare the diversity in size of leaf. Measure each leaf and create a class chart that indicate the size diversity. On what factors does size of leaf depend? Is it the age of the tree, or the location the leaf forms on the tree? Is it the environmental conditions of the year or specific conditions that affect a particular tree?

11. Read the article "Two Ways of Knowing" from the Caribou News, included as Appendix 4 in this Guide. Make a two column chart that summarizes the contrasts and similarities between the knowledge of the Inuit and the biologist. Write a paragraph discussing how the hunter's knowledge might be useful to the biologist and how the biologist's knowledge might be useful to the hunter.