Lesson Plans and Worksheets
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Cichlid Lesson Plans
Find teacher approved Cichlid lesson plan ideas and activities
Students explore the freshwater ecosystem of Africa's Lake Victoria by creating a freshwater aquarium. They investigate factors affecting the aquarium's ecosystem and conduct lab activities.
Young scholars select a species of fish and research facts about this species. They illustrate the written report with a picture of their chosen fish. The illustration may be labeled with body parts and background typical of the fish habitat.
Students engage in a story from a book, Mister Seahorse, fill out a chart of suspects and solve the clues. In this investigative lesson students visit web sites about their suspects and try to solve the mystery.
Learners create visual puns. They draw the name of bird from a basket and then create a visual pun illustration based on the bird's name. Students evaluate their drawing using a rubric and then present their work to the class.
Students discover art that contains composite imagery and visual puns. They create their own picture of composite imagery and explain the visual pun. Students develop skills using the drawing media.
Students examine some of the different ecosystems that fish live in. While doing this they identify the species of fish and the ecological conditions needed for survival. Students use research resources to make fish cards that have information displayed on them.
This lesson is designed to be used as part of an introductory biology course. It is formatted to be used in a 1.5 hour block period and should take place during a unit on evolution. Prior to this lesson, students will already have been introduced to Darwin's theory of evolution, along with the ideas of adaptation and natural selection. This lesson will give students the opportunity to review what they know about evolution, natural selection and adaptation.
