My Science Box

Summary
Wetlands book: First page of a 6th grade student's book on wetlands, written and shared with the 4th grade class. Cardstock paper, water spray bottles, markers and sponges are turned into models of wetlands and watersheds in this simple activity. Students follow the path of the water (and urban runoff) to a bay and develop an initial understanding of what watersheds are. Then some students add sponges to the borders of their bay to simulate wetlands and compare watersheds with wetlands to those without. Students extrapolate the role of watersheds as reservoirs in times of drought, as sponges in times of flood, and as filters for pollution. Finally, students compare watersheds with wetlands to those without after a “toxic chemical spill” (Koolaid drink mix) to see the effects of pollution throughout the watershed as well as to discover the role of wetlands in reducing the harm of severe pollutants to a bay. This series of activities is an excellent prelude for a wetlands restoration field trip (see the Save the Bay field trip planning guide) so that after learning what wetlands are, they can explore and restore a wetland area firsthand. Another extension and application of these ideas might be an exploration of the students’ own watershed, the effects of urban runoff and watershed protection.

Summary
In this lesson, students review the water cycle (a concept most have hopefully explored before in elementary school science) and write stories to describe the journey of a water molecule through the water cycle. They begin by labeling a drawing of the water cycle, noting the locations that water may be stored on the planet and the processes through which water travels from one location to another. They then envision several journeys as a class before writing a story to describe the journey of a water molecule through the water cycle. An optional mini-investigation to complement this lesson involves observing the transition of water through its 3 phases (ice, water, water vapor) after an ice cube is zipped into a resealable plastic bag and taped to a sunny window.

Summary
The management of the world’s fisheries is a controversial current issue that involves individuals from many different viewpoints – fishermen and women, environmentalists, park rangers, politicians, and shoppers at the seafood counter. The issue is that many of the world’s fisheries are overfished and have collapsed or are on the verge of collapse. This is but one example of the tragedy of the commons – where a limited common resource is overused because each individual person thinks, “If I don’t use this resource first, then somebody else will.” Students in this activity act as fishermen and women who need to share an ocean of fish and take in a catch. Groups soon realize that if they don’t set fishing limits and monitor the fish population, soon there are no fish left in the ocean.

Summary
Once students understand the concept of populations, it is important to introduce the idea of population change. There are many reasons for population change – limited resources, predator-prey cycles, human impact, habitat change – to name but a few. In this activity, students learn to graph population data and then use their graphs to evaluate one of the most famous examples of population change, the predator-prey population cycle of the snowshoe hare and the Canada lynx. The data is taken from the 300 years worth of real data collected by trappers of the Hudson Bay Company. This activity provides students a chance to look at real data and make some hypotheses about what causes population change in the real world. The Going Further section is more extensive than for other lesson plans on this site and refers teachers to many excellent population change activities that can be found in other curriculum guides.

Summary
Ecosystem Pyramid student work The study of ecology has many layers, ranging from the individual organism, to the population, to the ecosystem, to the planet. It is important for students to know the levels within this hierarchy and to recognize which level they are focusing on at any one time. For the purposes of this activity, students will learn about the different levels (organism, population, community, ecosystem, biome, and biosphere) by choosing an organism and the illustrating a pyramid about that organism. The result is a colorful display of organizational pyramids.

Summary
In this 2-3 day activity, students choose an organism and research its life cycle, food chain, and habitat. The student research is assembled in 2 ways. First, the classroom is cleared of tables and chairs while students use their organisms to create a food web stretching the length and width of the classroom. Second, the pages are assembled to create a field guide for your local area or for a field trip into a state or national park nearby. I found this to be an extremely effective way to get students interested and excited about an upcoming field trip. I choose insects, birds, fish, mammals, amphibians, and reptiles commonly sighted at Point Reyes National Seashore for students to research a week before the scheduled field trip. On the field trip itself, students were very excited to spot their animals and the student who did the research would usually come forward to tell his or her classmates all about their organism.

Summary
Students review the concepts of food chains and the roles of organisms in a food chain through a simple card sorting activity. Cards representing different individuals in a California ecosystem are first sorted by herbivore, carnivore, dentrivore, and omnivore, then are reordered to create several food chains. In addition, students begin to understand the idea of a food pyramid – since all living things use energy to move, reproduce, respond to the environment and grow, less energy is available to pass on at each link of the food chain.