Nature's Influences
10/3/2020
Scientists today look to animals and nature for inspiration on how to make human lives easier and longer. For example, our airplanes are shaped like birds, burn victims are treated with fish skin, and scuba fins for diving look like the fins you see on some marine mammals. Researching the capabilities and adaptations of plants and animals is especially important today as scientists search for a cure for things like cancer and Covid-19.
As scientists in our world look to nature for cures, the scientists in our classroom are looking at the Driving Question: How can humans learn from the way plants and animals use their external parts to survive? The real-world problem of the pandemic might not be solved in our classroom, but these independent thinkers are definitely excited to think like scientists and learn about how animal parts help animals survive and see how humans are inspired by them. As we research, students are not only learning about science but are also working on their reading skills and discovering how much we can learn through reading. This week students listened to the fairy tale "Little Red Riding Hood" from our StemScopes science curriculum to see what animal parts help the wolf use its senses and survive. As we look at how each animal, like the wolf, uses its parts to survive, we go back to our Driving Question. In this case, students realized that animals can inspire our writing. After hooking students with this fairy tale, we listened to the story, What if I had Animal Teeth by Sandra Markle. This put our small scientists in the shoes of the animals, taught them some fun facts, and set them up for our project on animal teeth. For this project, students selected an animal and began recording facts they already knew about their animal’s teeth. After recording their background knowledge, students helped me look at unknown vocabulary and inferences we could make on the texts about elephants and beavers, so that they could do the same for their own animals. These reading skills not only help readers understand the text but also help them see how we connect things we know with new facts to come up with answers to questions that may not be answered directly. In the coming weeks, students will continue using technology and reading skills to explore animal parts. I’m excited to see what their new facts, inferences, and imaginations come up with. Maybe, with the vision and independent thinking these students exhibit, these small scientists will grow up and create a new invention or cure inspired by nature. Comments are closed.
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Hali TuomiMs. Tuomi has over five years experience in ASD, where she taught first and fifth grade classrooms. An avid skier, Ms. Tuomi is a Magna Cum Laude graduate of Alaska Pacific University’s Bachelor of Arts in K-8 Education. Archives
April 2021
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