Science is a subject where you get to learn about why everything is the way it is around you. In 7th grade science, we are currently learning about living things within our Populations and Ecosystems unit. Within this unit, we take a look at the habitats in which many different organisms live. When the first semester students learned this unit, our bugs that we ordered did not survive very long. We decided that since the weather was nice that we were going to go outside to see what living organisms we could find. The students taking science this semester wanted to do the same thing.
As a class, we made our way outside and caught a variety of different living organisms. Some of those included: grasshoppers, crickets, spiders, ants, and even two frogs which we have as class pets now. Our next goal was to build a suitable living environment for all of these organisms. For the bugs, we designed the habitats in the picture given. Each habitat had a food source, a water source, breathing holes, and some type of climbing structure. After the habitats were done, we were able to use our new vocabulary words “observations” and “inferences'' to see what changes were happening or could happen day-to-day.
This activity goes to show that you may need to adapt your plan in some circumstances, but the students were able to get a hands-on learning experience with living organisms within our unit.