Greater Cleveland Aquarium
Teacher Guide
Theme: Aquatic Animal Adaptations & Aquatic Habitats Grade Band: 3-5 Program Length: 3 hours
Overview Investigate how differences in aquatic environments affect animal life. Investigate aquatic habitats and identify unique adaptations that allow fish to thrive. Discover how eels hide, sharks swim constantly, and catfish find food in murky water. Students work in teams, using the STEM model, to create a fish to live in a specific habitat.
Goal Students understand how abiotic and biotic factors cause changes in the environment and that these changes can lead to behavioral changes and physical adaptation to enable animals to survive.
Standards
Grade Strand Topic Content Statement 3 Earth and Space Earth’s Resources Earth’s nonliving resources have specific properties. Science 3 Life Science Behavior, Growth and Individuals of the same kind differ in their traits and Changes sometimes the differences give individuals an advantage in surviving and reproducing. 3 Life Science Behavior, Growth and Plants and animals have life cycles that are part of Changes their adaptations for survival in their natural environments. 4 Earth and Space Earth’s Surface Earth’s surface has specific characteristics and Science landforms that can be identified.
Grade Strand Topic Content Statement 4 Life Science Earth’s Living History Changes in an organism’s environment are sometimes beneficial to its survival and sometimes harmful. 5 Life Science Interactions within Organisms perform a variety of roles in an Ecosystems ecosystem.
Objectives
1. Students identify biotic and abiotic factors in four unique habitats; river, lake, open ocean, and coral reef. 2. Students make observations of fish adaptations and analyze how those adaptations enable the fish to survive in its habitat. 3. Students create a model fish using the STEM design process to demonstrate an understanding of fish adaptations for a particular habitat.
Vocabulary
Habitat Noodle Body Mottled
Survival Flat Bellied Body Countershading
Adaptation Tall Pancake Body Observation
Open Ocean Rocket Body Biotic
Coral Reef Upturned Mouth Abiotic
Heterocercal Tail Downturned Mouth Physical Adaptation
Forked Tail Gulping Mouth Behavioral Adaptation
Rounded Tail Terminal Mouth Freshwater
Wedge Tail Camouflage Saltwater
Pre-Activities
Lessons to help prepare your students and enhance your field trip experience:
1. Student Research Notebooks a. Divide your students into habitat research groups. Ideally, there will be 5 to 6 students per group. A group list worksheet can be found at the end of this guide. b. Assign each research group one of the three aquatic habitats: rivers & lakes, coral reef, or open ocean. With a large class, you may have more than one group assigned to each habitat (i.e. two coral reef groups). c. Each student should receive a copy of a Student Research Notebook correlating to the habitat group to which they are assigned. i. Rivers & Lakes: http://greaterclevelandaquarium.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/08/2016-2017-SRN-Lakes-Rivers.docx
ii. Coral Reef : http://greaterclevelandaquarium.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/08/2016-2017-SRN-Coral-Reef.docx
iii. Open Ocean: http://greaterclevelandaquarium.com/wp- content/uploads/2015/08/2016-2017-SRN-Open-Ocean.docx
d. Introduce the terms “biotic” or living, and “abiotic” or non-living. Have students complete page 2 in their Student Research Notebook. Students are instructed to draw a box or a circle around the factors in their habitat. e. Spend time exploring the four aquatic habitats. Discuss differences between the four. What makes a lake and river different from a coral reef? They have different biotic and abiotic factors. f. Introduce the term “adaptation” - a trait or characteristic that helps an organism survive. i. At the aquarium, we will study body shape, mouth shape, tail shape, and color pattern. g. Have the students complete the “Read – A – Fish Warm-Up” on page 3 in their Student Research Notebook. Can they correctly identify each adaptation with a clue? h. The rest of the pages will be filled out during the aquarium guided tour. Please have students bring their Research Notebook with them on the day of the visit.
2. Familiarize the students with the aquarium by viewing the aquarium map and by visiting the Greater Cleveland Aquarium website: www.greaterclevelandaquarium.com
Post-Activities
Lessons for the classroom to help reinforce concepts from your field trip experience:
1. Have students self-evaluate the fish they built during their trip to the aquarium. a. Do the adaptations they chose for their fish make sense? b. What would they change if they could repeat the build-a-fish project?
2. Changes to the Environment. a. Imagine that the biotic and abiotic factors in the aquatic habitats change. Sea levels rise, corals bleach and lose their color, rivers become deeper and filled with sediment from runoff, people litter the ocean with plastic, etc. b. Have students journal about how their fish would be affected.
3. Build another animal in the classroom. a. Have students design a fish for a second habitat. Compare and contrast the fish from each. b. Have students invent an invertebrate, build an insect, a mammal, a bird, etc. Incorporate adaptions from real animals the students are familiar with and combine the traits to invent a new species.
4. Build a habitat shadow box. a. Students built a fish for their habitat; now have them build a habitat for their fish. Create a shadow box or mural to visually portray the biotic and abiotic features of the habitat they studied. b. For ideas of how to create a shadow box: i. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/36732553188202704/ ii. http://www.firstpalette.com/Craft_themes/Animals/coralreefdiorama/co ralreefdiorama.html
Additional Resources
River http://www.eoearth.org/view/article/155760/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/habitats/River
Lake http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/habitats/Lake http://www.epa.gov/greatlakes/basicinfo.html
Open Ocean http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/habitats/Pelagic http://www.worldwildlife.org/habitats/ocean-habitat
Coral Reef http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/habitats/Reef http://education.nationalgeographic.com/education/news/coral-reefs/?ar_a=1
Fish Adaptations http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/education/adapt/adapt.htm http://wildlife.ohiodnr.gov/portals/wildlife/pdfs/publications/id%20guides/pub5127.pdf http://myfwc.com/fishing/freshwater/fishing-tips/anatomy/
Education Department
Greater Cleveland Aquarium
2000 Sycamore Street
Cleveland, Ohio 44113
www.greaterclevelandaquarium.com
Aquatic Animal Adaptations
Habitat Group List
Group 1: Rivers & Lakes Group 2: Coral Reef
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Group 3: Open Ocean Group 4: Rivers & Lakes
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Aquatic Animal Adaptations
Habitat Group List
Group 5: Coral Reef Group 6: Open Ocean
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