Life Cycle

Standard 4: The Living Environment 4.1a Plants and animals have life cycles. These may include beginning of a life, development into an adult, reproduction as an adult, and eventually death. 4.1b Each kind of plant goes through its own stages of growth and development that may include seed, young plant, and mature plant. 4.1c The length of time from beginning of development to death of the plant is called its life span. 4.1d Life cycles of some plants include changes from seed to mature plant).

Life Cycles

1) Driving Question

• Does the DQ warrant in-depth study?

• Students can choose from a multitude of life cycles and can each come to different conclusions. Each group must research the life cycles they choose and come up with diagrams showing the entire life cycle.

• Is the DQ an authentic and relevant issue/problem for my students?

• The study of this subject successfully fulfills Standard 4. Understanding the life cycles are essential in understanding how things grow. (Standard 4: The Living Environment 4.1a Plants and animals have life cycles. These may include beginning of a life, development into an adult, reproduction as an adult, and eventually death. 4.1b Each kind of plant goes through its own stages of growth and development that may include seed, young plant, and mature plant. 4.1c The length of time from beginning of development to death of the plant is called its life span. 4.1d Life cycles of some plants include changes from seed to mature plant).

• Is there more than one plausible solution to the DQ?

• There are many different animal life cycles for the students to choose from. While the students will all have the same plant life cycle, each group will be responsible for choosing a different animal cycle to research. Each group must have a different animal life cycle. This ensures that there will be many types of answers presented.

• Does the DQ provide opportunities for students to evaluate, analyze, present, and defend their solutions? - Provide a brief introduction to your question as well

• Each group must provide evidence of how the two cycles are similar and how they are different. The students must first evaluate the situation and find information on how the life cycle takes place. Once they analyze this information and come to a conclusion, the students can then present the information they have found.

2) Grabber

• Does the story, article, video, announcement, or role play other resource hook the learner into asking more questions about the topic?

• The video does not only show how a plant can grow, it also shows a butterfly and spider growing up and leaving to see the world. This video helps to hook the students by using descriptive wording as well as illustrations to grab their attention and keep it. This video was very good at explaining how the life cycle happens in a way that makes the students understand what is going on. From this video, there are many areas that can be explored. These ideas include things like the food chain or the different environments animals live in.

• Does the grabber capitalize on novelty and / or high emotion situations?

• Yes, in the video, the author uses emotions to pull the students in and make them feel sad that the seed was left behind while his friends moved on in their life cycle. This emotion led the seed to want to continue on with his life cycle and move out to see the world. In this way, the author uses the emotion of the reader to his advantage. He uses this emotion to capture their attention and make them pay attention to the details of the story.

• Does the grabber establish authenticity & relevance?

• While the video uses a storyline that is based toward younger children, it still manage to get the point across of how the life cycle works. The author uses relevant information to help the students genuinely learn how the life cycle of different things work. This information is both authentic and relevant.

• Make sure to explain how this grabber would be used.

• This grabber would be used at the beginning of a lesson to grab the attention and interest of the students. It would be a good way to introduce the subject and show how the life cycle can be made fun and interesting. This video has a lot of good information that would be useful in leading into the topic.

3) Culminating Activity

• How is the activity authentic?

• This activity is authentic because it helps the students to learn about life and how different animals and species grow. This topic is full of information that is useful in everyday life and can help the students begin to comprehend not just plant or animal life cycles, but human life cycles as well.

• Does the activity provide students with the opportunity to present and defend problem solution?

• The presentation of the information the students found, allows them to both present and defend their information to the class. This presentation helps not only the students presenting the information understand it better, but as the students who are listening to learn about all types of life cycles.

• Does the activity require student collaboration?

• The students will be grouped together in groups of three or four students to allow for the sharing of ideas.Each student must participate in some way to receive full points. At the end of the project, each student will be able to grade the other members of the group based on how hard they think they worked on the project.

• How will I judge what students have learned from the activity?

  
  

EXAMPLE: THE LIFE CYCLE OF A PLANT