CELF Diversity Hunt Activity

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Diversity Hunt ACTIVITY DESCRIPTION

This activity invites learners to engage in their surroundings, and works for both in-school and virtual learning. With the mindset of detectives, students look for clues about the characteristics and relationships of living things within a particular space. Exploration leads to discovery of a new learning environment at school, home, or in their community, inside or outdoors. Inspired by the Sustainable Schools Project, this investigation is a starting point for learning about the Big ideas of Sustainability, starting with the importance of Place and encompassing Diversity, Interdependence, Change over Time, and Systems. Essent ia l Questions • In what ways are things alike and different at the same time? • How are living and/or non-living things in the same place

connected? • How can we tell the story of a system? Habits of Systems-Thinking • Makes meaningful connections within and between systems • Identifies elements and feedback loops in a system • Changes perspectives to increase understanding

Student Outcomes Students will: gain a deeper connection to the place of investigation; share and articulate their discoveries with a partner and the whole group; engage with their environment in tactile, verbal and visual ways; build a mental model of the concept of diversity, interdependence, place or systems through first-hand experience. Time: 15 – 20 minutes

GRADE LEVEL

CONNECTIONS TO THE BIG IDEAS OF SUSTAINABILITY

PRE-K – 12th Grade

Change over Time

Community

Equilibrium

Diversity

Interdependence

Interdependence

Place

Systems


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MATERIALS Color paint chips, paint sample cards from hardware store, cut into single color cards and a place to explore! PREPARATION Find a place to explore. Natural spaces easily express most of the Big Ideas of Sustainability in observable ways. This may also be any of your learning spaces, both indoors and/or outside. Gather paint chips/color sample cards from the hardware store. Explore the location prior to conducting the activity to develop a sense of possibilities and limitations for your students. PRE-ACTIVITY QUESTIONS Look around the place you are introducing your students to – a museum, a city park, a forest or the classroom. Ask your group what colors they see at first glance. ACTIVITY Using a variety of colored paint chips ask them to find an object (living or non-living) that is the closest match they can make to their color chip. They do not need to remove items, but if it is a place where they are allowed to, go ahead! If not, just make sure they know where to find it again. They can take a photo to help document the color connection. Now, challenge them! Discussion Questions for Students

• How did your perspective of this place change? • What do you know about this place that you didn’t know before? • How does your object relate to other students’ objects? • What makes up a “community”? • Is your object part of a community? If so, how? • How might your object change over time? In different seasons? 5, 10, 100 years from

now? What might your object have looked like before you saw it today? Reflection for Educators

• How can you apply this to your classroom and or teaching practice? Virtual Instruction Applications

• Students can explore their own home and/or local community using their own color chips made by hand with markers and paper.

• They can share their findings by uploading a photo or video to Padlet and indicate the nature connections.

• Padlet provides the opportunity for peer and teacher feedback while building a community of learners among the class.


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Elementary: Big Idea: Diversity (K.10A) EQ: In what ways are things alike and different at the same time?

• Have students find (in field or science examples in classroom) or draw the objects that best match their color card. Have them think about the diversity of these objects (could be shape, size, weight, texture, location). Have students brainstorm researchable questions about their objects.

Big Idea: Interdependence (1.9C, 2.9C, 3.9B, 4.9C, 5.9) EQ: How are living and/or non-living things in the same place connected?

• Have students pair up, each with a different color card, and find the connection between their two items that match the color chips. For example, how is the blue robin’s egg connected to the green tree leaf?

• Work in small groups to use the paint chip color to help students find a complete food chain. Draw the food chain in your science journal to show and reflect on the organisms’ interdependence. Extension for third and fourth grades: what would happen if one organism in the food chain/web increased, decreased, or perished.

Big Idea: Place (3.9A; 5.9C) EQ: What communities come together to create one’s place?

• Review the meaning of community. Second, have students work in groups of 2-4, each with a different color card, and find examples of how natural and human communities collectively create a sense of place. How do these examples co-exist?

Middle School: Big Idea: Systems (6.12 E, F; 7.5B, 7.10A, B) EQ: How can we tell the story of a system?

• have students pick three paint chips, match them to objects and then write an explanation or informational piece of how these objects are connected and part of a system (from a historical or scientific approach) or,

• how the items contribute to the sustainability of an ecosystem. Have them use text-based evidence in their explanation or,

• have students describe and create how their findings (abiotic and biotic) interact, and where they fit into the level of organization through a diagram or 3D model.

Big Idea: Equilibrium (7.13A,B) EQ: How do organisms respond to external stimuli to maintain equilibrium?

Community

Place

For Educators: Learning Standards Connections


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• have students find examples of organisms responding to either external or internal stimuli within the designated field area. Students can record their findings in their science journals via diagrams and descriptors.

High School: Big Idea: Interdependence EQ: How are your findings from each of the paint chips connected?

• 9th grade: have the student pick 3-5 paint chips and they will create a news story - or expository genre text - based off of their findings and how these colors are connected.

• 10th grade: have students use their paint chip findings to write a persuasive piece as a public service announcement (PSA).

Big Idea: Change Over Time • 11th graders: have students write an argumentative piece defending the

connection between environment and future careers Big Idea: Community

• 12th grades: have students define an idea and write an essay on collective action and how their community can support and protect the environment and promote social equity.

NGSS Crosscutting Concept

5-LS2-1 Develop a model to describe the movement of matter among plants, animals, decomposers, and the environment

Systems and systems model

2-LS4-1 Make observations of plants and animals to compare the diversity of life in different habitats

MS-LS2-3 Develop a model to describe the cycling of matter and flow of energy among living and nonliving parts of an ecosystem.

Patterns Cause and Effect Energy and Matter Stability and Change

K-ESS3-1 Use a model to represent the relationship between the needs of different plants and animals (including humans) and the places they live.

Patterns Cause and Effect Systems and systems model

Next Generation Science Standards


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Science TEKS ELA Enduring TEK K-12

Social Studies

Elementary School

The student knows and can describe interactive relationships, systems and cycles within environments.

Inquiry and research: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts. The student engages in both short-term and sustained recursive inquiry processes for a variety of purposes.

Grade 2. The relationship between the physical environment and human activities

Middle School

The students knows there is a relationship between organisms and their environment - interdependence occurs among living systems and the environment and that human activities can affect these systems.

Geography. The student understands the effects of the interaction between humans and the environment in Texas.

High School Biology - The student knows that interactions and interdependence occurs within an environmental system. Biological systems work to achieve and maintain balance. Environmental Systems - The student knows the interrelationships among the resources within the local environmental system and is expected to conduct laboratory and field investigations and make informed decisions using critical thinking and scientific problem solving. Students should be able to distinguish between scientific decision-making methods and ethical and social decisions that involve the application of scientific information.

US History. The student is expected to use problem-solving and decision-making processes to identify a problem, gather information, list and consider options, consider advantages and disadvantages, choose and implement a solution, and evaluate the effectiveness of the solution.

Texas Educators: Possible TEKS Pair ing & Cross-Curricular Col laborat ion

Documents

CELF Diversity Hunt Activity