Science Curriculum Preview Committee Clarification of Learning Results

Curriculum Organizing Questions	How do you describe what animals are like? How do you describe what plants are like? How are plants and animals similar? How are plants and animals different? Are all plants similar? Are all animals similar? What are some of the ways animals differ from one another? What are some of the ways plants and animals in stories differ from the way they are in nature?
Elaboration	Students should be aware of some of the characteristics that are readily observable that living things share. In order to do this students need to participate in frequent and repeated observations of many different living and nonliving objects. Because the child's world at grades K-4 is closely associated with the home, school, and immediate environment, the study of organisms should include observations and interactions within the natural world of the child.NSES p. 128. Children build understanding through direct experience with living things, their life cycles, and their habits.
Specific Ideas	Animals need air, water, and food. NSES C1a. Plants need air, water, nutrients, and light. NSES C1a. Each plant and animal has different structures that serve different functions. NSES C1b. Living things have senses that help them detect changes in their environment. NSES C1c. Some animals and plants are alike in the way they look and the things they do, and others are very different from each other. Benchmarks 5A1. Stories sometimes give plants and animals attributes they really do not have. Benchmarks 5A3.
Developmental & Instructional Implications	Elementary students typically use movement, breath, reproduction, and death to decide whether things are alive. Many children do not consider plants to be alive, but do consider inanimate objects that move to be alive. There is an extensive discussion of the development of this concept in Making Sense of Secondary Science by Driver, pages 17-21. The concept of growth is discussed on pages 36-40. Research shows that students are not able to conceptualize the biological idea of "living" until 9 or 10 years of age. Students should therefore be given many opportunities to observe many different life forms (correctly identified as "alive"; or "nonliving") and asked to make observations, but not be expected to reliably apply the biologist's accepted criteria for life.
Examples	Students might be asked to look at pictures of selected familiar items and divide objects into piles of living and nonliving. They could then be guided to list characteristics of the living pile that the nonliving pile does not have.