Rainforest Mini Research Project, Non Fiction Writing

Last week we begin our non-fiction writing unit.  I had our students learn the process of writing non-fiction writing pieces by writing about a subject they knew a lot about.  This week I will be teaching them how to do research and take notes on a subject.  They will all have the same topic, doing research on the same information and using the same resources to do research. 

The topic of our papers this week will be rainforests.  The kids must find information on...

What is a rainforest?

Animals of the rainforest?

Humans living in rainforests?

Our students will have  websites and videos that I will teach them how to read and pull information from.  I am also providing them with a short non-fiction reading on rainforests they may also use as a resource. 

Their goal is to read and pull out information for each sub-heading above.  They will then take their notes and write their non-fiction reports.

Resources to use

Enchanted learning Rainforests
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/rainforest/

Wikipedia Rainforests
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainforest

Amazon Rainforest Slideshare
http://www.slideshare.net/aquadante/rainforest-interactive-for-3rd-grade

Kids Mongabay-Rainforests
http://kids.mongabay.com/

National Geographic-Rainforests
http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/habitats/rainforest-profile/

NeoK12
Great set of short videos!
http://www.neok12.com/Forests.htm

Oceans--The Coral Reefs

Our 5th area to study will be the ocean coral reefs.  I asked the class which habitat they would like to study for this 5th non-fiction research and writing and they chose coral reefs!

So far in our Sharing the Planet unit of inquiry, the kids have researched and studied the habitats of the world rainforests, deserts and ponds.  They have learned about mammals, reptiles, and amphibians.  We have also studied food chains and looked at food chains from the habitats we have studied. 

The sub-headings they will research for this writing topic will be:



1)  What are coral reefs?  Describe types of coral.

2)  How do animals use coral reefs to help them survive?

3) Study three animals that live on or near coral reefs.

On-Line Resources To Use

Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_reef


Enchanted Learning- Coral Reefs-  Great site for all three subheadings http://www.enchantedlearning.com/biomes/coralreef/coralreef.shtml

3 minute Coral Reef Video--National Geographic
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/environment/habitats-environment/habitats-oceans-env/coral-reefs/

The Great Barrier Reef--Video
http://adventure.howstuffworks.com/coral-reef-videos-playlist.htm

National Geographic--Animals of the coral reef
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/invertebrates/coral/

Coral Reef Info Site- Great info on the animals of coral reefs
http://www.coral-reef-info.com/coral-reef-animals.html

Reptile Research

       This week our kids will begin research on a group of animals--The Reptiles.  They will only have two sub-headings to research this week which should allow them to concentrate on finding good information.  They are using the websites below and books from our library to study reptiles.

       Our guiding questions for our research this week will be....

What characteristics does an animal have to have to be called a reptile?

• Find out what is so different about reptiles--think about what we learned about mammals!

What are three good examples of reptiles?

• Find information about three reptiles that interest you most.

      The students will be taking notes in school for most of this week and then turning those notes into a short non-fiction writing piece.

Website Research

Wikipedia Reptiles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reptile

National Geographic
What pictures and information on this site!!!
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/reptiles/

The San Diego Zoo
This website has some individual infromation on the actual animals.
http://www.sandiegozoo.org/animalbytes/a-reptiles.html

This frog is learning about the circle of life, the hard way

The Animal Planet
Great video and images of reptiles
http://animal.discovery.com/reptiles

The ARKive
Great pictures and video for fifty reptiles.  Great video to make observations and add info for your notes.
http://www.arkive.org/reptiles/

Enchanted Learning
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/reptiles/printouts.shtml

Helmer Nature Center Field Trip

Last Friday our class took a field trip to the Helmer Nature Center. In class we are studying ecosystems and our trip to Helmer gave them a pond ecosystem in real life!

Our class learns what they will do at Helmer.

In this picture the class is pretending to be macro invertebrates that live in pond water. They learned some of the organisms are tolerant of poor water quality while some are intolerant. In the this game I was a pond stressor and the kids acted like the organisms. I had to catch them while they moved like the organisms. Some were fast movers- I caught the slow ones!

Here the kids met a pond turtle and a box turtle.

In this last picture the class is about to take water samples to find pond macro invertebrates.  We had a few slips in the mud but no one ended up in the pond!

Chorus Assembly Today!

Check out our kiddos at the assembly today! Students report for the concert tonight at 6:30 at Eastridge.

Release the Butterflies!

A few weeks ago my class started a unit on butterflies.  We received the Painted Lady butterfly in the larva stage.  I had the kids transfer their own larva to a separate small container that contained an ample amount of food (provided by our science kit).  For about a week, the kids watched their tiny caterpillars eat their way to giant, fat, hairy caterpillars.  Then after a weekend, the kids came in an discovered their caterpillar was hanging from the top of each container in a chrysalis.  Once they were all bundled up in their chrysalis forms, I taped the lid of their containers to the lid of a special butterfly habitat and we waited.  For one complete week they watched, every morning before morning work, their little caterpillar to see any changes.  Over last weekend, the hatched!

Check out the video and pictures I took of them when we released them today!
 

Video of our Painted Lady release!



One of the butterflies found a flower and got a quick snack!



Just after opening the habitat!

Mini Desert Ecosytem Research Paper

This week we will begin researching desert ecosystems.  The kiddos did a fabulous job research rainforest and wrote excellent non-fiction writing pieces!

The kids will be researching..

What is it like in a desert ecosystem?  (Thinking about the climate at night vs during the day, cold deserts?)

Animals of the desert

The third sub-heading I want them to research is totally up to them.  What interests them about the desert?

Resources

Eyewitness Video--Deserts  Seen in class, students took notes

Desert USA--Desert Life
http://www.desertusa.com/life.html

Desert Wikipedias Site
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert

Enchanted Learning Deserts
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/biomes/desert/desert.shtml

Desert Slideshow
http://www.slideshare.net/Michellesoto/3rd-grade-ecosystem

National Geographic Site on Deserts
http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/habitats/desert-profile/

The Sonoran Desert, Arizona Upland
http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/exploring_ecosystems/desert.html

Desert Food Chain
http://www.world-builders.org/lessons/less/biomes/desert/hot-desert-chain.html

Animals of the Desert--great pictures not much info
http://mlbean.byu.edu/Portals/26/docs/Desert%20Adaptations.pdf

People living in the Desert

https://sites.google.com/site/geographysaharadesert/how-people-ive-in-the-sahara-desert
and
http://library.thinkquest.org/26634/desert/people.htm

Death Valley
1)  http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/national-parks/death-valley-national-park/

2)  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Valley

Plants of the Desert
1) http://www.blueplanetbiomes.org/desert_plant_page.htm

2)