This is a set of cards that describes flowers and pollinators. By matching plant characteristics to pollinators students find out what animal pollinates what plant.
"Rotten logs are an important part of a living community. They provide homes for animals and a place where certain plants can grow. The log eventually decays into soil, changing its texture, colour, depth, water-holding abilities and richness. In this activity, you will explore the many features of a rotten log." Includes data collection sheets.
"The purpose of this paper is to introduce teachers to some of the possibilities of keeping live worms in the classroom in a controlled and managed environment for the purposes of fulfilling requirements of the Onrario Science Cuniculum. Vermicomposting also provides an interestin method of exploring many aspects of serious environmental issues"
"Students will draw comparisons from how people send and receive sound vibrations and how animals do. Using animal calls, habitats will be explored to see what will call back."
Students are given the following task:
"You are a highly specialized ecologist/zoologist that has just recently discovered a new, rare animal species! Your job is to inform the public about your discovery and the importance of protecting this species so it doesn’t become extinct (increase public awareness)."
This activity walks students through defining renewable and non-renewable sources of energy, tracking how energy is changed and used by people and culminates in building a balloon powered car.
Students are guided to carefully observe characteristics of wildflowers and/or trees. These characteristics are linked to descriptive latin words. Students create a descriptive latin name for the plants they have observed. Encourages using scientific terminology and learning the anatomy of plants. Later the actual latin and common names of the plants can be shared. How close were the student names?
Instructions on leading a class in observing, recording and classifying insects. Includes data collection sheets and a great deal of background information.
"This activity allows students to apply the concepts they have learned about diversity, adaptations, and interactions, while using their imagination to create an organism that is adapted to a particular habitat. Students must also focus their attention on the needs of the organism, the interactions of that organism with both the biotic and abiotic factors in the environment, and the effects the environment has on their organism."
"This activity is a cumulative assessment that allows students to pull together all the information they have learned about the solar system and space exploration. At the same time, students are to use the skills they learned from the Diversity of Life unit, as they are to describe the various characteristics of an alien life form, the method(s) of communication used between themselves and the life form, and the implications such a discovery would have on humans."
This integrated exercise asks students to use accurate measurement, simple mathematics and deduction to identify an animal species. Students take measurements from an animal trail and prints, and apply a simple mathematical analysis involving measures of central tendency. The exercise also provides a worthwhile reason to get students outside.
"Rotten logs are an important part of a living community. They provide homes for animals and a place where certain plants can grow. The log eventually decays into soil, changing its texture, colour, depth, water-holding abilities and richness. In this activity, you will explore the many features of a rotten 1og." Includes data collection sheets.
Examination of Bioaccumulation and Biomagnification through interactive games and discussion.
"This activity will allow students to explore the concept of mining as they delve into collecting as much chocolate as possible from two chocolate chip cookies! The process allows students to question what it is like to locate mineral deposits, extract these deposits from the ground, and the difficulties associated with both the extraction of the resources and the later reclamation of the land."
This assignment was specifically designed as a whole grade project so that 5 different sections of Grade 7 Science worked collaboratively (though indirectly) with each other, resulting in the equivalent of 5 large, colourful, information-packed bulletin boards! It provides students a chance to explore a particular ecosystem, to choose organisms for study, and to express their artistic abilities.
"The local Farmer’s Market has hired you to design and create a display explaining to shoppers about the environmental impact of choosing foods with greater embodied energy, due to having traveled greater distances. The promotional information will be displayed at neighbourhood grocery stores. It should encourage customers to choose locally grown produce whenever possible in order to make environmentally and socially conscious consumer decisions."
"This lesson gives students the opportunity to develop skills of scientific inquiry, design and communication. Students will plan, conduct and analyze a scientific investigation for a question they have formulated on an observable and/or measurable ecological relationship, problem or idea in the school grounds."
A listing of topics, subtobics and content covered by this unit. Includes an extensive annotated bibliography.
Students study the local geological history by examining various types of geological evidence. Includes building a plasticene model of rock layers, drilling with a straw and learning how to interpret the core sample. After a field trip to examine local geology students build a model specific to their area.