Introduction
Lesson three takes the skills of comparing and contrasting you learned in
lesson two, and uses them in a different situation. In this activity, you
will compare family roles across the different species. You will be using
prior information, information you gather from the WWW and facts you retrieve
from film.
The Task
The task Here is to encourage you to learn even more about families by discussing
their roles. Family roles are different from the traits or components that
we learned about before. First of all we need to define what a role is and
why it is important to know the different roles of families. We will begin
by reviewing the functions of plants as an example of family roles.
Resources
Resources for this activity are: film, the internet and science text.
The Process
The process is comparing, using prior and new knowledge.
- First, we will spend time reviewing the functions of plants from lesson
one. This will enable you to better recognize what roles of families are.
- Next, we will study the roles of a specific family - lions, using
a film. After we watch the movie, we will participate in a complete class
discussion that will get you to compile a group list of the different functions
in a pride. You will each receive a copy of the group list for your notes.
- To further this comparison, new species will be introduced - turtles.
Since we have no real scientific knowledge regarding turtles, we will need
to acquire this information by exploring different WEB sites that are appropriate:
(see above)
- Your goal is to gather information about the different roles of a
turtle family. As you can see, columns are available on your handout of
lion roles for the information you will gather on turtles and bees.
- The third species we will study is the social bee. We have already
studied the bee in science class. You will need to recall this information
for the third part of our comparison. Our review will be done by breaking
the class into teams, having you go over with your teammates what you recall
and playing a quick game of jeopardy. After which you will fill in the bee
section of your handout. Additional information regarding bees is available
on the above Web site for those of you who want it.
- You will all then input information into a pre-made computer table
in order for you to present your information to the class. Working in
groups of 3-4, you will complete this table and discuss what your group
believes are the similar roles for each family.
- Final step will be group presentations which will reinforce the different
tables' information.
Conclusion
After completing this lesson, you will be able to create tables, fill in
and categorize prior and new information, and analyze that information for
similarities. You will know the common roles that families share.
Next Lesson
Lesson
Last updated April 28, 1996. Return to the 
Unit
Outline Page
The Social Bee
Turtle Families