IOWA 4-9 SCIENCE PROJECT

TEACHER GUIDE for: Down Under Gloria Baker
Edited by Reta Lemon
ECOLOGY.46G Grades 4-6

CONCEPT OBJECTIVE:
Through this activity students will develop their perception of their natural environment from another point of view.

SKILLS OBJECTIVE:
The students will develop their observing, investigating and recording skills.

BACKGROUND HINTS:
Locate an area that has a variety of investigative sites including by not limited to fallen logs in various states of decay, hard objects in contact with the ground, ant hills, a variety of trees or shrubs, open sand, and grasses of various heights.

Spend at least one class period investigating with the students objects that appear to show one idea but when looked at more closely show much more.

Example 1: A withered tulip in a flower pot. This object to the casual observer appears dead and without value. Looking more closely, removing the dried top, separating the top soil carefully presents to view a solid, light green, bulb with darker green top that is very much alive and capable of producing a new flower.

Example 2: A dry appearing acorn lying half buried on the top of a pot of soil. Looking more closely, and gently moving the acorn could present to you a long white root that has curved from the acorn into the ground which in time will become the tap root that will feed an oak for three hundred years.

Discuss the need to handle objects with care, and to return them to their original position with the least amount of impact on the object or the habitat.

This activity can be done with students working individually or observations before beginning the activity. The headings on their recording sheet may be as follows:

UNDER A LOG LIFE FOUND CONDITIONS COLOR

MATERIALS:
1 recording sheet
1 sheet of typing paper
1 pencil
1 hand lens
1 clipboard or hard surface for writing

EXPLORATION:
Direct the students to select an object of their choice, look at it from another point of view. Instead of the top of the leaf, look underneath, not at the grass from a standing position or kneeling position but from a snakes' point of view just inches above the ground. Look at tree bark from the downside out or a spider web from the spiders view, etc.

As observations are made record this information on the recording sheet.

Remind students to touch with discrimination, move gently and return habitats and objects to their original positions.

CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT:
Bring the class together to discuss what they observed during their down under investigation. Record their observations on a blackboard, overhead or wall chart under habitat headings.

ANT HILL, FALLEN LOG, BENEATH A LEAF, UNDER A ROCK, UNDER BARK will be listed by students as habitats they investigated. Accept every habitat.

Then discuss and list the kinds of critters and what they were doing after each of these habitats. Some possible observations made would include an ant caught in a web, two black ants carrying a dead fly down into the hole, a black and red beetle chewing on a stem, hundreds of small holes with egg like white shapes attached under the top layer of bark on the log etc.

Next make a list from the students observations of the changes in color, for example, above and under a leaf, texture inside and outside of a fallen log, color of plants under and above a fallen piece of wood.

Continue going through the headings that students had on their recording sheets until all have been covered.

Together make comparisons of one habitat to another, the number of "things" they observed and how a down under point of view opens up new minute worlds.

APPLICATION:
Brainstorm with the students all of the down under places they could visit if they had the power to go anywhere. Their list would include but not be limited to:
1. Down under a volcano, glacier or mountain.
2. Down under an ocean, river or pond.
3. Down under our country-Australia
4. Down under our school, city or home
5. Down under a tree, rabbit warren or prairie dog town.
6. Down under a car oil spout, keyboard, adding machine.

Divide the students into groups of two or three, give each group a large sheet of cardboard or tagboard 36" x 36" or larger depending upon class space.

Direct each group to select a "Down Under" and create either by drawings or 3-D construction what they would find if they visited there.

Display the finished product. Label the project "Going Down Under." Give certificates for each group for "Most Interesting" Most Likely to Please a Rabbit, etc.

Hang the certificates down under each finished product!

EVALUATION:
The final project is a valid evaluation instrument, as is the teachers observations throughout the activity.