“SPLASH, FLASH, CRANK, SLIDE, ALIVE!”

This science tour is packed with plenty of hands-on action! Science comes alive as students explore the Water Table, Shadow Room, Super Slide, and Animal Encounters.

Topic: “SHOW ME THE ENERGY”

SECOND GRADE

Standards: Science Math Language Arts

Life Science

Standard 1. CELLS: Conceptual Strand 1: All living things are made of cells that perform functions necessary for life. GLE 0207.1.1. Recognize that plants and animals are made up of smaller parts and use food, water, and air to survive. Teacher Questions, Pre-Tour Q: How do plants get food? (They make food in their leaves with the sun’s energy. They get other dissolved nutrients from water taken up by their root systems.) Teacher Questions, Post-Tour Q: Did you see any animals, like turtles, at the Discovery Center? Where do they live in the wild (in the wetland), and how do they get food, water, and protect themselves from danger (predators)? Standard 2. INTERDEPENDENCE: Conceptual Strand 2: All life is interdependent and interacts with the environment. GLE 0207.2.1. Investigate the habitats of different kinds of local plants and animals. Teacher Questions, Pre-Tour Q: What is a habitat? Describe what plants need in their habitat. Teacher Questions, Post-Tour Q: What things in its habitat help an animal survive? (food, water, shelter, space.) Draw an animal that you saw at the Discovery Center and its habitat. Be sure to put food, water, and shelter in its habitat. (Students can draw individual habitats, or combine their drawings into one larger mural for the classroom.) Alternate: Utilizing the “Wetland Animals and Plants” worksheets at the end of this packet for sample plants and animals to use ‘as is’ or enlarge. Have students color these appropriately. GLE 0207.2.2. Investigate living things found in different places.

Teacher Questions, Pre-Tour Q: Look for animals in the schoolyard. Observe them. Are they small or large? Can you tell where they live and what they might eat? How far do they travel? Teacher Questions, Post-Tour Q: Discuss your ‘Show Me the Energy’ experience at the Discovery Center. List on the board ways in which habitats can help animals and plants survive? (food, water, shelter/space). GLE 0207.2.3. Identify basic ways that plants and animals depend on each other. Teacher Questions, Pre-Tour Q: What are some ways that plants and animals in the same habitat depend on each other? (plants can provide food, shelter for animals, animals transfer seeds, dead animals decay and become part of the soil that gives nutrients to plants.) Teacher Questions, Post-Tour Q: Are any of the animals you saw at the Discovery Center plant eaters? (rabbit, chinchilla). Do any of the animals you saw eat other animals? (ferret, hedgehog). Standard 3. FLOW OF MATTER AND ENERGY: Conceptual Strand 3: Matter and energy flow through the biosphere. GLE 0207.3.1. Recognize that animals eat plants or other animals for food. Teacher Questions, Pre-Tour Q: What do you need to stay alive? (water, food, air---and suitable space to live). What would happen if you didn’t have one of these things? (not survive, go someplace else, if possible) Q: What does an animal need to stay alive? (water, food, air---and suitable space to live) What would happen if an animal didn’t have one of these things? (not survive, go someplace else, if possible) Teacher Questions, Post-Tour Q. Remember your experience with ‘Show Me the Energy’ at the Discovery Center. Draw an animal you saw at the Discovery Center and all the things it needs to stay alive in its habitat (space, water, air, food). Display the class drawings. How are your animal’s needs similar to your needs? How might their needs be different from your needs? (Everyone needs food, water, air, shelter, and space. Types of food, shelter, and amount of space will be different for each species. You probably don’t eat earthworms, but box turtles love to eat them!) Standard 4. HEREDITY: Conceptual Strand 4: Plants and animals reproduce and transmit hereditary information between generations. GLE 0207.4.1. Compare the life cycles of various organisms. Teacher Questions, Pre-Tour Q: How have you changed since you were a baby?

Q: How do plants look when they are “babies”? How do trees change as they grow from a seed (for example: acorn, pecan, walnut)? [Seed, sprout, seedling, adult plant] Teacher Questions, Post-Tour Q: Describe the life cycle of a frog (egg, tadpole, froglet, frog). Compare it to the life cycle of a bird, a rabbit, a human. GLE 0207.4.2. Realize that parents pass along physical characteristics to their offspring. Teacher Questions, Pre-Tour Q: Has anyone ever told you that you looked like ‘Aunt Susie’ or that you resembled one of your grandparents? What about animals---how do they look like their parents? Q: Do you think all plants or animals look like their parents when they are very little? Compare chicks to hens or roosters, tadpoles to frogs, caterpillars to butterflies, etc. (Some animals do NOT resemble their parents at first, but grow to resemble adult members of their species. Sometimes it’s hard to tell what plant sprouts will grow into.) Alternate: Utilizing the “Wetland Babies and Adults” worksheet at the end of this packet: Directions: Draw a line connecting pictures of a juvenile with an adult wetland animal. Ask: “Which animal looks a lot like its parents when it was a baby? Which animal grows to look like its parent as it becomes an adult?” (Ex: ducks, dragonflies, muskrats, frogs). Teacher Questions, Post-Tour Q: Can you describe the life cycle of an ant? (egg, larva, pupa, adult). Do ‘ant babies’ (larva or pupa) look like an adult ant? What about frogs? What about oak trees? Q: Sequence a collection of pictures into the correct stages of a plant, insect, and/or a mammal’s life cycle. This could be done as a center activity. Standard 5. BIODIVERSITY AND CHANGE: Conceptual Strand 5: A rich variety of complex organisms have developed in response to a continually changing environment. GLE 0207.5.1. Investigate the relationship between an animal’s characteristics and the features of the environment where it lives. Teacher Questions, Pre-Tour Q: What does an animal, like an insect, need to survive? (food, water, air, space). Q: How are a plant and an insect alike? How are they different? Q: How might they depend on each other? Teacher Questions, Post-Tour Q: On a long piece of paper (2’ x 6’ or so) draw a habitat with a cross-section of soil below and grass and plants above the soil line. Have students draw, color, and cut out animals (including

insects) and plants, and glue them in appropriate places in the habitat, above and below the ground. Include food sources for all animals and sunshine for green plants. Alternate: Utilizing the “Wetland Animals and Plants” worksheets at the end of this packet for sample plants and animals to use ‘as is’ or enlarge. Have students color these appropriately.

Physical Science Standard 9. MATTER: Conceptual Strand 9: The composition of matter is known, and it behaves according to principles that are generally understood. GLE 0207.9.2. Investigate how temperature changes affect the state of matter. Teacher Questions, Pre-Tour Q: In summer, how does the heat of the sun affect water? (raises the temperature of water, can cause water to evaporate, become a gas). Teacher Questions, Post-Tour Q: Ask the students to think about the water in the Water Table at the Discovery Center. Is it a liquid or a solid? Did you see water as a solid at the Discovery Center? What temperature change causes water to become solid? What is water called when it is a solid? Standard 10. ENERGY: Conceptual Strand 10: Various forms of energy are constantly being transformed into other types without any net loss of energy from the system. GLE 0207.10.1. Explain why the sun is the primary source of the earth’s energy. Teacher Questions, Pre-Tour Q: How does the sun affect plants? (plants use the sun’s energy to make their own food. All other organisms cannot make their own food) Animals? (all food comes from plants originally). Teacher Questions, Post-Tour Q: How does an animal, like an insect, get energy from the sun? (it eats plants or other animals that grow from the sun’s energy). The sun also provides heat for insects to be active. [Practically every source of energy comes from the sun. The exceptions include; geothermal energy, nuclear energy, tidal energy, and some chemical reactions. Petroleum is stored sunlight, as is wood and plant parts. Wind energy is derived from the heating of the atmosphere by the Sun, and hydroelectric energy is dependent upon the sun’s evaporation of sea water. Standard 11. MOTION: Conceptual Strand 11: Objects move in ways that can be observed, described, predicted, and measured. GLE 0207.11.1. Investigate how forces (push, pull) can move an object or change its direction.

Teacher Questions, Pre-Tour Q: How do living things move? Do non-living things move? (rocks---earthquakes; trucks---motor, human driver, water----gravity, shape of the river bed.) Teacher Questions, Post-Tour Q: How did the boats in the water table at the Discovery Center move? Did anything make them move fast or more slowly? Q: How did the water in the water table move? Did you make it move differently? Q: How did you move when you went down the slide at the Discovery Center? What force helps you slide down the slide? Standard 12. FORCES IN NATURE: Conceptual Strand 12: Everything in the universe exerts a gravitational force on everything else; there is an interplay between magnetic fields and electrical currents. GLE 0207.12.2 Realize that things fall toward the ground unless something holds them up. Teacher Questions, Pre-Tour Q: When you throw a ball, it eventually drops to the ground. When you jump up, you land (hopefully, on your feet) on the ground. Why don’t you float away in the sky when you jump up? Teacher Questions, Post-Tour Q: When you were on the slide in the Discovery Center, what made you slide down rather than just sitting there, inside the slide? Was there any way to go down the slide faster?

Math Standard 1. Mathematical Processes GLE 0206.1.3. Develop independent reasoning to communicate mathematical ideas and derive algorithms and/or formulas. Teacher Questions, Pre-Tour Q: How long do you think it will take us to drive to the Discovery Center? To eat our lunch? (estimate) Q: How much time do you think each presentation will take? (estimate) Teacher Questions, Post-Tour Q: When did we go to the Discovery Center? (yesterday) Q: Which activity took longer: eating lunch or driving to the DC? A DC activity or eating lunch? Q: How long were we at the DC? In hours? In minutes? (estimate) GLE 0206.1.6. Read and interpret the language of mathematics and use written/oral communication to express mathematical ideas precisely. Teacher Questions, Pre-Tour Q: What is a way to describe the temperature today? (hot, warm, cool, chilly, etc.) Can you estimate the temperature?

How does your estimate compare with the measurement from both Fahrenheit and Celsius thermometers? (Measure the air temperature outside by both Fahrenheit and Celsius scales and compare estimates.) Teacher Questions, Post-Tour Q: Describe the temperature outside during our visit to the Discovery Center. Did the temperature change from when we arrived to when we left? Why? Can you estimate the temperature? How does your estimate compare with the measurement from both Fahrenheit and Celsius thermometers? (Measure the air temperature outside by both Fahrenheit and Celsius scales and compare estimates.) Standard 2. Number and Operations GLE 0206.2.4. Develop an initial understanding of multiplication. Teacher Questions, Pre-Tour Q: [Suggestion: Using popsicle sticks, count out 4 or 5 sets of 50 sticks per set; put in Ziploc bags ahead of class time, and given to small groups for multiplication practice.] Give each small group some multiplication problems without answers on laminated cards (all products must be 50 or less; Ex: 3 x 4 = 12, that is, 3 sets of 4 sticks in each set = 12 sticks). Have them use their sticks as tokens to visually represent the problems. Explain how grouping sets up the multiplication problem. A tally sheet will help group members record the problems on the cards they received and their answers to each problem. Teacher Questions, Post-Tour Q: During your time in the Shadow Room, you had to count and hold a position to make shadows while someone counted the time (this may have been skip counting or counting backwards). Skip count to 30 by twos. Skip count to 32 by fours. Skip count to 55 by fives. Ask: ‘How is skip counting similar to multiplication?’ Standard 4. Geometry and Measurement GLE 0206.4.2. Understand the meaning and process of linear measurement. Teacher Questions, Pre-Tour Q: Discuss ways to measure objects. Have students measure some classroom objects, using both a 36” measure and a meter stick. Compare the two measurements for each object. Ask: ‘Why is it important to know what measure is being used for a measurement?’ (consistency, replication) Teacher Questions, Post-Tour Q: [Suggestion: Have three of the students of different heights who were on the trip come up to the front of the room.] Ask the class, ‘While you were in the Shadow Room, whose shadow was large?

Larger? Largest? [or Small? Smaller? Smallest?] Why do you think so?’ Measure the height of each of the students with a 36” measure and with a meter stick. Standard 5. Data, Probability, and Statistics GLE 0206.5.1. Use and understand various representations to depict and analyze measurements. Teacher Questions, Pre-Tour Q: Suggestion: We can sort items in different ways. (Ask 7-10 students to come up to the front). We can sort our classmates by whether they are boys or girls. (Ask standing students to sort themselves into 2 groups, boys and girls.) We could resort them by color of shirt (warm colors ---pinks, reds, oranges--- OR cool colors ---blues, greens, grays, blacks) or color of shoes. Sorting involves selecting something to compare. Graph boys and girls with warm and cool colored shirts (boys/cool shirts, boys/warm shirts, girls/cool shirts, girls/warm shirts) labeling each axis appropriately for each graph, using picture graphs (stick figures are fine!) and bar graphs. What do our graphs tell us? (Do the graphs give us the same information?) Teacher Questions, Post-Tour Q: You can group the animals you saw at the Discovery Center by families based on the way they look and are made, and by the number of each type of animal you saw. Mammals (warm-blooded animals, have fur, give live birth, feed babies milk) --- rabbit, hedgehog, chinchilla, ferret Reptiles (cold-blooded, scales, and nails) --- lizards, turtles, snakes (also alligators and crocodiles), tortoises Amphibians (cold-blooded, smooth, sensitive skin, no nails) --- toads, frogs, newts, salamanders Birds (feathers, wings) --- owls, eagles, robins, hummingbirds, penguins Graph these different animal families (mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds), labeling each axis appropriately for each graph, using picture graphs and bar graphs.

What do our graphs tell us? (Do the graphs give us the same information?)

Language Arts

Recommended Reading: Non-fiction: Animal Lives: The Rabbit by Sally Tagholm Energy Makes Things Happen by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley Down Comes the Rain by Franklyn Branley A Drop Around the World by Barbara McKinney Forces Make Things Move by Kimberley Brubaker Bradley Gravity Is a Mystery by Franklyn Branley

Guess Whose Shadow? by Steve Swinburne Pass the Energy, Please! by Barbara Shaw McKinney Shadows and Reflections by Tana Hoban Shadows Are About by Ann Whitford Paul Shadows: Here, There, and Everywhere by Ron and Nancy Goor Snakes! Strange and Wonderful by Laurence Pringle The Tortilla Factory by Gary Paulsen Trout Are Made of Trees by April Pulley Sayre Vulture View by April Pulley Sayre Who Eats What? Food Chains and Food Webs by Patricia Lauber I Fall Down by Vicki Cobb What Makes a Shadow? by Clyde Bulla Fiction: Ferret Fun by Karen Rostoker-Gruber Good-Night, Owl! by Pat Hutchins Little Owl’s Night by Divya Shrinivasan