Class/grade:
transdisciplinary theme
School:
School code:
Title:
An inquiry into rights and responsibilities in the struggle to share finite resources with other people and
with other living things; communities and the relationships within and between them; access to equal
opportunities; peace and conflict resolution.
Teacher(s):
central idea
Date:
how it may need to adapt in future because of environmental changes brought about by humans
Knowledgeable
Thinking Skills
Knowledgeable,
Inquirer
Thinking Skills
Communicator
Thinking Skills
Highly Proficient
Proficient
Developing
Emerging
You effectively
communicate your
understanding using
supporting facts and
details and sophisticated
subject-specific
vocabulary.
You demonstrate clear,
accurate and thorough
understanding of your
animal and its
adaptations to its
environment.
Concept of adaptation
Sample 10.1
What are the learning experiences suggested by the teacher and/or students to encourage the students to
engage with the inquiries and address the driving questions?
What are the possible ways of assessing students prior knowledge and
skills? What evidence will we look for?
To support students in making connections to prior learning and to support teachers in
planning for differentiation, we will look for evidence of students prior understanding of
the concept of adaptation in the introductory explorations.
Students will use a graphic organizer to show their understanding of the different parts of
the central idea. (Over time/living things/need to adapt/in order to survive)
Students choose 5 of 9 introductory explorations with the purpose of helping them connect with the concepts of
adaptation and environment.
(Create a designer animal to suit a novel habitat; Listen to reading samples and fill in a table with the headings
living thing, adaptation and how the adaptation helps the living thing survive; Create a labelled diagram of the
adaptations of successful students; Document a time the student needed to adapt to a new environment;
Camouflage simulation with students hunting different coloured toothpicks in the grass; Watch the Plant
Adaptations video,define the term adaptations and give some examples; Complete a concept definition map for
adaptation; Respond to a comic with a sweating mammoth saying he cant wait until the next ice age; Read about
the how only 2 of every 100 froglets survive and hypothesize about the characteristics that enable the survivors to
survive.)
In the reading experiences, we will look for evidence that students can use inference to
identify adaptations of living things.
Trip to the local natural history museum. Students write and draw about the following halls: Ancient Mammals,
Ancient Reptiles, Mystery of Animals, Function of Plants and Evolution of Plants.
In the expert group research, we will look for evidence of students transdisciplinary skills
development that is used to support students in developing an understanding of the
central idea, including: using time wisely; asking open-ended questions; ability to read
and understand different texts for information; note-taking information and gathering data
that answers research questions; communicating research findings.
Visiting experts from nearby geology park. One expert focused on how fossil records inform our understanding of
evolution. This expert brought along models and fossils for students to see and handle. The second expert
focused on the process of creating models of fossils and the importance of this, along with helping students
create their own model using the casts from the geology park.
What are the possible ways of assessing student learning in the context
of the lines of inquiry? What evidence will we look for?
Read fictional books (i.e. books where characters move to a new culture) or view fictional movies and discuss
how characters adapt to their environments.
In the expert group research, students will need to identify adaptations and connect them
to the environments of living things. We will look for evidence that they have explicitly
made this connection and that they have an accurate understanding of the concept of
adaptation.
In the summative assessment task, students will need to do this as well as look at how
living things are adapting or responding to current environmental conditions. We will look
for evidence that they are knowledgeable about current environmental conditions and
possible/realistic and impossible/unrealistic adaptations within the given time frame.
Students discuss and document in their journal their personal adaptations to a new culture and environment.
Bird beaks simulation to see how the beaks connect to the environment.
Expert group research: Students rotate through different centers with information on different types of adaptations
(e.g. adaptations for changing seasons, movement, protection, hiding, getting food) and ballot for the ones that
they wanted to focus on. They then carry out more in-depth research with strategy/research skills lessons along
the way, as needed.
Research a particular animal, focusing on their own questions that go back to the concepts, lines of inquiry and
teacher questions. Create a descriptive writing piece so their classmates can guess which animal they chose.
Read about and create a corridor-sized timeline of evolution with important dates and events (concurrent with
lessons on visualizing large numbers).
What opportunities will occur for transdisciplinary skills development and for the development of the
attributes of the learner profile?
Research, communication and self-management skills: The research projects lead students to ask questions that
are open and link to the central idea, analyze information (infer) in their reading, find appropriate resources from
the library and on the Internet, make notes using keywords, use time appropriately and synthesize information in
order to share research findings. They will also have to accept responsibility for their own thinking and decisions
in order to become more independent. Organizing their belongings will also be a great area of development.
Learner profile: Students will develop or extended their curiosity in becoming stronger inquirers, discovering
questions for research and finding answers. They will explore the concepts and ideas of this unit and become
very knowledgeable about how animals adapted over time and current challenges. They will become stronger
thinkers, making connections between disciplines. They will become better communicators, reading or viewing
a variety of texts and writing or speaking about their understandings. Students will become more caring as they
will have to share limited resources. Additionally, they will become more caring about living things and the
environment.
Sample 10.1
As a result of the museum trip and visit from people from the geology museum,
students initiated an impromptu discussion about how dinosaurs were not able to
adapt due to changes to their environment and what the changes were. From
watching various film clips about the Arctic, students talked about how the polar
bear adapted to its winter and summer conditions and possibilities of what might
happen if the polar region continued to warm up. Students became more able to
recognize examples of adaptation in different media, even when the reference to
"adapt" or "adaptation" was not explicit. Students began to make much stronger
connections between different classrooms and teachers. Students were able to
make connections between their independent learning and whole-class
discussions and activities, as well as across disciplines. They used the vocabulary
correctly in context on a regular basis. In the summative assessment task,
students were easily able to discuss how their animals would not likely be able to
adapt to current conditions. The questions students asked in their research
showed that they understood that there was no quick change related to survival.
The in-depth discussions between students were perhaps the most striking
examples that they understood the central idea.
Changing the third line of inquiry from plants and animals to living things would
clarify that there is a possibility of a focus on human adaptations.
How you could improve on the assessment task(s) so that you would have a
more accurate picture of each students understanding of the central idea.
We need to ensure that we allow adequate time for the summative assessment
task. We need to ensure that the likelihood of adaptation is included in students'
work on that task. Setting the pre-assessment task again would be a good
indication of growth over the unit.
The expert group research required students to work at quite a high cognitive level.
Next year, instead of "adaptations for hiding", etc., we would focus students more
on concrete terms like camouflage, mimicry, hibernation, migration, protection,
etc., and look for a unifying concept of connection with the environment.
What was the evidence that connections were made between the central idea
and the transdisciplinary theme?
Students talked about the effect human actions have on the planet and recognized
that what we do impacts on every living thing. They graphed information from the
home survey on climate change and found information from the graphs about what
our community thinks about climate change.
Concept development Visit to the natural history museum helped them understand change and
evolution.
The timeline and reading The Story of Everything helped develop an understanding of evolution.
Visit from staff of the geology park, handling fossils and making fossil models helped with an
understanding of evolution and change.
Reading books that implied adaptations ensured that students had a deep understanding of this
concept.
Both research projects enabled students to learn about the connections between environment and
adaptations.
Bird beaks group investigation helped with an understanding of adaptation.
Researching plants and animals within a habitat contributed to students understanding of connection.
Seabird adaptation game and video clip helped them understand adaptation.
Reading/viewing fictional texts and discussing how characters adapted to their environments and
linking this to their own lives helped them understand adaptation.
The degree to which students were able to/should be able to understand adaptation as part of the
evolutionary process is a question to be addressed in planning for this unit next year.
Transdisciplinary skills development
Research projects enabled students to develop and demonstrate a number of research skills. A teaching
focus on reading texts for information, using time well, asking good questions, taking/making notes and
communicating learning were useful in helping us to meet students' needs.
In addition, transdisciplinary skills were also developed in the following learning experiences.
Thinking skills: Analyzing reading about living things to discover adaptations that were listed implicitly.
In the summative assessment, synthesizing information to come up with ways in which their animal
could adapt.
Social skills: Discussing climate change and recording on climate change graphic organizer, working in
the expert groups.
Communication skills: Being an audience for different presenters/presentations; presenting/sharing
research in groups; presenting graphed climate change information; reading/viewing a variety of
information texts.
Learner profile and PYP attitude development
Students have developed or extended their curiosity and become stronger inquirers, discovering questions
for research and finding answers. They became very knowledgeable about how animals adapted over time
and the challenges they currently face. They became very knowledgeable and better communicators as
they learned and used subject-specific vocabulary. They have become much stronger thinkers, making
connections between disciplines and analyzing texts to find examples of adaptations. They have become
better communicators, reading or viewing a variety of texts and writing or speaking about their
understandings. Students have become more caring as they have had to share limited resources.
Additionally, they have become more caring about living things and the environment.
Sample 10.1
9. Teacher notes
This unit provided the opportunity for the development of subject-specific knowledge, skills and
understanding from the schools science scope and sequence documents:
What are the different ways that animals hide from predators?
Which part of an animal's body is most likely to be adapted to protect itself from
predators?
Why do leaves change colour and does this help the trees?
Why are we studying the past? Why not study the present because we still have time
to make it fair for everyone now?
How do animals adapt to deliver venom?
How do paleontologists know the colour of dinosaur skin?
How did the first people come to Earth?
If bird bones are hollow, when fossil people make copies, are the copies hollow too?
Why do lions climb trees?
At this point teachers should go back to box 2 What do we want to learn? and highlight the
teacher questions/provocations that were most effective in driving the inquiries.
Knowledge
Recognize and use the following terms accurately: Behavioural and structural adaptations,
predator, prey, herbivore, omnivore, carnivore, endangered, extinct, feature.
Skills
Understandings
Recognize the ways in which plants and animals have adapted over time.
Make links between different features of the environment and the specific needs of living
things.
Assess the impact that changes in environmental conditions can have on living things.
Recognize the importance of the fossil record to inform the concept of evolution.
Sample 10.1