Science and Technology/Engineering
20 Grade 3
Lauren Weiss and Margaret Krone
Human Interactions
In grade 3, students develop and sharpen their skills at obtaining, recording and charting, and analyzing data in order to study their environment. They use these practices to study the interactions between humans and earth systems, humans and the environment, and humans and the designed world. They learn that these entities not only interact but influence behaviors, reactions, and traits of organisms. Grade 3 students analyze weather patterns and consider humans’ influence and opportunity to impact weather-related events. In life science they study the interactions between and influence of the environment and human traits and characteristics. They use the engineering design process to identify a problem and design solutions that enhance humans’ interactions with their surroundings and to meet their needs. Students consider the interactions and consequent reactions between objects and forces, including forces that are balanced or not. Students reason and provide evidence to support arguments for the influence of humans on nature and nature on human experience.[1] [2]
LS1. From Molecules to Organisms: Structures and Processes
- 3-LS1-1. Use simple graphical representations to show that different types of organisms have unique and diverse life cycles. Describe that all organisms have birth, growth, reproduction, and death in common but there are a variety of ways in which these happen.
Falcon Curriculum Core Categories
Anatomy and Life Cycle
Animal Behavior
Falcon Curriculum Essential Question
What is a falcon’s life cycle?
Materials
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Sample Plan
This lesson should be taught in March-June when the falcon cam livestream is available. If that is not possible, you can use the prerecorded falcon cam clips.
Hand out the journals. Explain that students will be watching the life cycles of falcons through the falcon cam livestream and will use the journals to document observations.
As a class, go through the About Falcons sections and the Falcon Curriculum videos. Note important vocabulary needed to make accurate observations (nesting, pair bonding, clutch, incubation, pip, eyas, fledge, etc.). You can either hand out a glossary or have students put them in the back of their journal themselves.
Have them illustrate life cycle charts for the falcons, including egg, chick, juvenile, and adult, in the journal so they have a reference.
Give them a standard way to document each observation and do them as a class:
- Date
- Time (Start watching – end watching)
- Weather
- What happens in the nest box
- Adult falcons present?
- Can you identify if it’s the male, female, or a floater?
- What behaviors are they exhibiting? (Pair bonding? Prey deliveries? Incubation? Nest defense? Preening? Loafing? Sleeping?)
- Offspring? If so, what stage of the life cycle chart?
- Eggs present?
- When were they laid? (Check the @DuBoisFal