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Educator Resource: Curriculum Module

Creature Features

What do animals and plants need to survive? How do certain adaptations support these needs? Discover what it could look like to hand-pick adaptations and design the "perfect" underground scientist.
Level
Early Elementary
Time required
Minimum of seven 40-minute sessions

During this unit, students explore what animals and plants need to survive. They also closely examine how certain adaptations support these needs. For the culminating activity, students create a mashup that represents the adaptations they believe would be best suited for the success of a scientist working nearly one mile below the surface at the Sanford Underground Research Facility.

Note: students are encouraged to go outside to "explore" life in Lesson 2. Spring and Fall are likely to yield more observations of living things.

 

Creature Features-- The Needs of Living Things

K-LS1-1 Describe patterns of what plants and animals (including humans) need to survive.

K-ESS3-1 Use a model to represent the relationship between the needs of different plants or animals (including humans) and the places they live.

1-LS1-1 Design a solution to a human problem by mimicking how plants and/or animals use their external parts to help them survive, grow, and meet their needs.*

1-LS1-2 Read texts and use media to determine patterns in behavior of parents and offspring that help offspring survive. 


2-LS4-1 Make observations of plants and animals to compare the diversity of life in different habitats.