Design for a Pond Habitat

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Design for a Pond Habitat A WebQuest for 4th
5th grade Designed by Debbie Goehring Charles
Dial Enter your school affiliation.
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Introduction This curriculum material was
developed as part of the Tennessee State
Department of Education Inservice Science Program
taught by Richard Audet of Roger Williams
University, Bristol, Rhode Island. We chose
the topic of developing a pond habitat based on
inspiration we from the book, Song of the Water
Boatman Other Pond Poems by Joyce Sidman.
The hands-on opportunity for students to learn
from developing an out of doors classroom will
relate to food webs and food chains in the
Tennessee State Curriculum for 4th 5th grades.
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Learners This WebQuest focuses of the Content
Area of Life Science. It is geared towards
fourth and fifth grades. The main idea is to
provide the interaction of students with the
environment of a pond ecosystem. This WebQuest
could easily be used as a cross-curriculum plan.
It could also be easily adapted to other grade
levels. Learners should have a basic
understanding of habitats, food webs, and food
chains.
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Curriculum Standards Tennessee Science Standards
Learning Expectations 2.1 Investigate the
relationships among organisms in a specific
ecosystem. Performance Indicators State At Level
1, the student is able to 4.2.spi.1 select plants
and animals found in a specific environment. at
Level 2, the student is able to 4.2.spi.2
recognize how plants and animals interact with
each other in their environment. at Level 3, the
student is able to Performance Indicators
Teacher As documented through teacher
observation, at Level 1, the student is able
to 4.2.tpi.1 group organisms according to the
specific environment that they inhabit. at Level
2, the student is able to 4.2.tpi.2 investigate
and describe how plants and animals interact with
each other in their environment. Benchmarks for
Science Literacy . By the end of the 5th grade,
students should know that For any particular
environment, some kinds of plants and animals
survive well, some survive less well, and some
cannot survive at all. .Insects and various
other organisms depend on dead plant and animal
material for food. .Organisms interact with one
another in various ways besides providing food.
Many plants depend on animals for carrying their
pollen to other plants or for dispersing their
seeds. .Changes in an organism's habitat are
sometimes beneficial to it and sometimes harmful.
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National Science Education Standards Life
Science The world has many different
environments, and distinct environments support
the life of different types of organisms. Each
plant or animal has different structures that
serve different functions in growth, survival,
and reproduction. For example, humans have
distinct body structures for walking, holding,
seeing, and talking. The behavior of individual
organisms is influenced by internal cues (such as
hunger) and by external cues (such as a change in
the environment). Humans and other organisms have
senses that help them detect internal and
external cues.
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