Earth and Space Lessons

Stephanie
Lesson 1 This term I taught the kids about Earth and space. This subject has been taught at least once a stage so we started this unit out with a review game. The kids in this class have looked up a lot of stuff and they knew quite a bit…
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DNA

Stephanie
DNA DNA can be an abstract concept to students. It helps if the kids know what atoms and molecules are. We had already gone through that last year. I contrasted the complicated large DNA molecule with much simpler ones like water. The DNA is coiled up inside the nucleus of…
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Dinosaurs and the Fossil Record

Stephanie
Fossil Record and Mass Extinctions One of the observations Darwin used as support for life on Earth changing over time was the fossil record. Animals and plants appear and disappear from the fossil record. One of the most famous examples of this phenomenon is presence and extinction of the dinosaurs.…
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Vertebrate Development

Stephanie
Vertebrates Animals are split into two groups based on whether or not they have a backbone. Vertebrates are animals with a backbone and a skeleton with muscles attached to it. Invertebrates have a soft body and in some cases is supported and protected by an exoskeleton or shell. Vertebrates include…
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Insects and a Spiders

Stephanie
Arthropods While plants make up the vast majority of biomass on the planet, arthropods make up most of the animal biomass. Arthropods are invertebrates. They have no backbone, and for that matter no bones at all. They have a hard exoskeleton that protects them and allows them to move around…
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Living and Nonliving Things

Stephanie
Introduction I've looked at a lot of ways that people teach kids about living and nonliving things. The problem is that there isn't really a standard definition of life. In fact there is an ongoing debate about which category to put viruses in. For the very youngest kids it may…
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Classification of Mammals

Stephanie
  Mammals When considering the Animal Kingdom the first major spit is between animals with backbones and those without. Those with backbones include fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. The next major split is between the amniotes and nonamniotes. This is an important split because amniotes (reptiles, birds, and mammals)…
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How Life Has Changed Earth and Life

Stephanie
Life Has Changed Earth Oxygen Releasing Microorganisms Earth looks like it does today due, in part, to the plants and animals that live here. The first major change life made to Earth was the Great Oxygenation Event. Blue Green Algae developed the ability to photosynthesize. This released massive amounts of…
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Water Cycle

Stephanie
The Water Cycle The Sun heats the Earth with the electromagnetic radiation it emits. This radiation travels through space and when it gets to Earth it moves the molecules on Earth causing them to heat up. When water is heated it turns to water vapor and rises into the sky…
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Making Fossils

Stephanie
Fossils Sedimentary Rock Wind and water break and wear pieces off of rocks. Water and wind also move small pieces of rocks and minerals. When these pieces get into a body of water they settle at the bottom. As time passes, these pieces are compressed by the weight of more…
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