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What’s Your ?

Summary Background this home or place its habitat. Students explore basic survival For , habitat may mean needs of humans and by All forms of , from humans to the neighborhood or in drawing their own homes and cows to to flowers, need which they live. neighborhoods. certain things to live. Survival depends on getting enough , water, cover and places to raise Procedure Grade Level: K-4; 5-8 young. , plants, fungi and microbes share these same 1. Ask students, What do all Time: survival needs, though it is a little humans need to survive? Which 1 class period more challenging to think about of these do plants and animals (30-45 minutes) how plants and microbes meet also require? Focus on the four these needs. This activity focuses basic survival needs true for all Subjects: exclusively on animals. (Educators living things. Guide class to gen- Science, Language Arts,Art may challenge older students to erate a list with these needs: food, look at the needs of plants and water, cover and places to raise Skills: microbes as well.) young. Write the list on the Analysis, comparison, applica- board. Students may give other tion, description, synthesis Animals must have a place to live answers, which you can put with where they can get food, water, the four major categories. Learning Objectives: cover and places to raise young. Students will be able to: Cover may mean protection from 2. Ask, Where do humans get the sun or other elements as well food, water, cover and places to ■ Name the four basic survival as protection from other raise young they need to survive? needs of humans animals (called Generate a list of student ■ Recognize that humans predators) that answers. On the board, you may share the same basic needs may eat the ani- may want to draw a picture of as all other living things mal. Places to your own home/neighborhood to ■ Create a picture showing how raise young can show where he/she locates food, a habitat provides humans with also mean a protected water, cover and places what they need to survive spot, like a bird’s , or to raise young. ■ Compare and other an area with specific qualities that enable offspring to survive. For 3. Pass out art materials to ■ Identify how animals meet example, monarch butterflies lay students and ask them to draw basic needs in habitats their eggs on milkweed plants, their home. They can start with a which provide some cover as well picture of the house or building Materials: as a food source for growing where they live. Tell them to ■ Paper monarch larvae. Therefore, a leave space around the house to ■ Crayons/markers monarch habitat must include add other parts of their neighbor- ■ Pictures of a human house, milkweed plants for the butterfly hood where they meet their basic animal homes, animals in a to raise young. survival needs. Have them each habitat and examples of pick a color to represent each of different habitats (Start with Do humans have the same the four basic needs and write it pictures of , , requirements as animals? They on the bottom of the paper. and add local do. Humans build houses for habitats students recognize.) cover and places to raise young. 4. Ask, Where do people get food? Other animals may build or (Perhaps from a supermarket or burrows for protection or cover. garden?) Where do they store Still others take cover where they find it, under trees or in a large herd. But for all animals (includ- ing humans), home is much big- ger than a house. It’s the entire neighborhood where an animal gets the food, water and cover it needs to survive. Scientists call | Activities and cook food? Have them add alter their environment, but find these places labeled with “food” cover all the same – a snake that (in the food color) to the draw- between rocks, for example. ing. Guide students to think Discuss how the habitats are the about other needs. Where does same or different. Ask students, the water they drink and bathe How might animals find the with come from? Is it food, water, from a well in the area cover and places or is it piped into their to raise young home from a reservoir? in the habitat? Ask students if they think that Where do they go to humans depend on the physical escape heat and sun or environment of Earth to survive? rain and snow? What other habitat elements do they need to survive? Extensions To think about places to Modifica- raise young, they should tions for ✔ Have the class do a large consider themselves the Older mural of their combined habitat. “young” and think about Students Basing the mural on the individ- how their parents met ual habitat pictures students this need. Add pictures 1. Follow the drew, compile a large drawing as of these to their draw- procedure for a group, adding in the different ings of “home.” Use the selected younger students, but do not features students identified. Per- colors to label pictures to show provide as much detail as to the haps a whole neighborhood what it provides for them (i.e. source of their basic habitat ele- habitat will emerge, which can water). ments. Instead, challenge stu- remain on the wall of the class- dents to identify all the places room and be referred back to in 5. Upon completion, have each that help them meet their basic later lessons. student share his or her picture needs within their territory with the class. On the board, (neighborhood). Assessment note how many of the habitat elements (food, water, cover and 2. After students draw their ✔ Have students keep a journal places to raise young) students habitat, challenge them to design for a day or a week in which included on drawings. Which and draw a Mars colony. (Alter- they will write down each time needs appear on everyone’s natively, focus on designing a they eat, drink water, sleep in a drawing? Tell students that they space station or a colony on the safe shelter, find cover to escape have just drawn their own habi- moon.) Have them think about the heat or cold and where and tat. Habitat is home, the place the basic needs of living things how they found these things in where humans get all that they and how they would meet these their habitat. Did they ever leave need to survive. Like all animals, on a faraway planet that’s very the habitat they drew during this habitat is where humans satisfy different from Earth. Have them activity? If so, what were they the most basic survival require- research how the physical envi- looking for? Do they think it ments - the food, water, cover ronment of Mars (or space or was a “basic survival need” that and places to raise young. (For moon) differs from Earth’s. They should now be added to the those who didn’t include the four will need to include: a food drawing? Review their journals habitat elements, have them go source, a water source, an oxygen for evidence of correct applica- back and draw the missing ones source (air is a critical need for tion of habitat ideas to their in.) Display drawings. living things, but one taken for own lives. granted on Earth), cover from 6. As a wrap-up, compare the the harsh environment and ✔ Have students observe an ani- students’ habitats to pictures of places to raise young. mal at home or on the school- animal habitats in the wild. Use yard for up to a week. Keep a pictures of animals that build a 3. Once drawings are finished, similar journal to that outlined home to live in, such as an ant, have students present their ideas above for their observations. a bird or a beaver. Then show to the class and display. Discuss pictures of animals that do not choices that students made. National Wildlife Federation |