Curated OER
Specialized for the Sea
Students use pictures and make a mural to investigate how ocean animals are adapted to certain parts of their environment.
Curated OER
Predator vs. Prey
Fifth graders participate in a game to become familiar with predators and preys. In this predator vs. prey lesson, 5th graders ascertain whether a photo shows an organism as a predator or a prey. Students read Killer Creatures. Students...
Curated OER
Wildlife
First, biology pupils research land and marine habitats along the route of skipper Rich Wilson's Great American II. Then, using colored paper clips scattered across a colored paper background, they play the predator-prey game to...
Curated OER
Who Am I?
Young scholars classify organisms into one of five categories: producer, consumer, decomposer, predator, or prey. Students play a "Who Am I" game. Signs are hung on the backs of fellow young scholars They must ask questions to determine...
Curated OER
Leo's Colorful Story
Motivate your learners with this lesson about the Tiger Swallowtail Butterfly. They listen to a story about the butterfly and then follow directions to color pictures. This is a simple, but effective lesson with all the necessary...
Curated OER
Getting Food
Students explore seashore ecosystems. In this marine animal biology lesson, students sort photographs of various sea creatures according to their eating habits and discuss each animal's identifiable traits. Students draw and label...
Curated OER
Getting Food
Students complete activities to learn about the ocean food web. For this ocean life lesson, students discuss how the tides affect feeding, learn about filter feeders, grazers, predators, and scavengers. Students then group the animals...
Curated OER
Whose Skin
In this animal skin types worksheet, students complete a chart using names of animals, description of animal's skin, where it can be found and illustrating a picture of the animal's skin.
Smithsonian Institution
Trait Tracker
Help mice beat the odds with an exciting activity about traits. Biologists discover the role of diet and other factors on animal traits by participating in a simulation activity. Teams collect and evaluate data to understand how certain...
Curated OER
Habitats
Students complete food chains for organisms in three environments. They use copies of the Habitat worksheet. Students review the food chain terms with the teacher. They research related food chains, and interlink these to form a food...
Ask a Biologist
It’s a Plankton Eat Plankton World
For as small as they are, plankton sure play an enormous role in maintaining marine ecosystems. Dive into an investigation of these tiny organisms with a hands-on life science activity in which children cut out pictures of sea animals...
EngageNY
Conducting Research: Analyzing a Variety of Sources to Capture Information about My Insect
From picture to words. Scholars analyze a picture of an ant and then list two facts they observed and any questions that may arise. Expert groups from the previous instructional activity then look at a diagram about either an ant or...
McGraw Hill
Arthropods
Are spiders related to crabs? Study the order of arthropods with a reading selection about animal diversity. It provides details about each class within the order, as well as vivid pictures and explanatory charts.
University of Minnesota
Manduca sexta: Caterpillar Dissection
Caterpillars have an amazing, yet tough job to perform in their short lives — eat much, avoid predators, and try not to let all those comments about being the unattractive stage of the life cycle get to them. How do they handle it all?...
NOAA
Deep-Sea Benthos
Much like a distant planet, the underwater world of deep-sea benthos is strange and largely unknown. How do creatures survive and thrive in such extreme pressure and temperature conditions? Young oceanographers join the crew of Operation...
Curated OER
What Makes up an Ecosystem?
Eighth graders design posters of working ecosystems using pictures from magazines. They label autotrophic, heterotropic, or saprotrophic energy sources, and identify predators and prey.
Curated OER
Species Interactions
Eighth graders explore seven terrestrial biomes. They compare relationships between children, parents and friends to interactions among species. After observing pictures of types of interaction, 8th graders describe the predator-prey...
Curated OER
What's For Dinner?
Students explore the food chain. They brainstorm and create a consumer-consumed food chains using magazine pictures and research materials. Students identify consumer-consumed relationships.
Curated OER
Invertebrate Jobs
In this invertebrate worksheet, students draw an example of invertebrates that have the following ecosystem jobs: scraper, predator, shredder, or collector. Then students draw lines to connect the invertebrates with the other items in...
Curated OER
Bug Work
Students explore the life cycles of insects and how they interact with each other in the prairie to create a healthy ecosystem and viable food chain. They list animals or insects in their own community that are similar to the prairie...
Curated OER
Science: Evolution and Natural Selection
Pupils watch a clip from the film, Jurassic Park, as an introduction to analysis and discussion of the evolutionary history of dinosaurs. As an exercise in evolution, students in groups, draw dinosaur pictures based on the previous...
NOAA
Understanding Food Chains and Food Webs
Jump into an exploration of marine ecosystems with the first lesson in this four-part series. After first learning about crustaceans, mollusks, and other forms of sea life, young marine biologists view a PowerPoint presentation that...
Exploratorium
Disappearing Act
Crafty critters are camouflaged to escape predators, and crafty science pupils can construct a camouflage demonstration. They work with a partner to show that as a camouflaged animal moves, it becomes more visible.
Curated OER
Life Has A History
In this biology worksheet, students identify and match various classes of species found today. Then they explain why biodiversity exists today on earth and define evolution. Students also describe who a paleontologist is and what they do.