Unit 4: Heredity

Instructional Resources

OAS-S: 1.LS1.2, 1.LS3.1

Bundled Standards Analysis: Heredity  

Driving Question

• How can individuals be similar or different from others of the same kind? 

Essential Questions

• How are parents and their children similar and different?

• How do inherited behaviors help offspring survive?

Examples of Student-Developed Initial Questions

• Why do baby kittens meow?

• Why do birds build nests for their eggs?

• How can I tell what type of plant a seedling will become?

• Why do baby birds look different from adult birds?

• Why do some puppies have different colored fur? 

Prior Knowledge

Each dimension in the Oklahoma Academic Standards for Science grows in complexity and sophistication across the grades. To learn more about the prior knowledge and skills students have developed in previous grades associated with the standards in this bundle, check out the links below.

Science and Engineering Practices 

Disciplinary Core Ideas 

Crosscutting Concepts 

Science and engineering practices (SEP) in Grade 1 build on prior experiences. This bundle of standards engages students with the following SEPs: 

• Obtaining, Evaluating, and Communicating Information
• Constructing Explanations

Disciplinary core ideas (DCI) in Grade 1 build on prior experiences. This bundle of standards explores the following areas:

• Growth and Development of Organisms
• Inheritance of Traits
• Variation of Traits

Crosscutting concepts (CCC) in Grade 1 build on prior experiences. This bundle of standards leverages the following ways of thinking about science ideas: 

• Patterns
  

Launch Task: Phenomena Ideas

Phenomena are observable events that occur in the universe and that we can use our science knowledge to explain or predict. Engineering involves designing solutions to problems that arise from phenomena and using explanations of phenomena to design solutions. Instructional sequences are more coherent when students investigate phenomena or design problems by engaging in science and engineering practices. Read this STEM Teaching Tool Brief #28 to learn more about the characteristics of a good phenomenon or design problem for anchoring student learning.

Each phenomenon below includes teacher information resources (e.g., information about the phenomenon, data resources, videos, simulations, etc.). Due to the length or accessibility of the content, teachers should screen the resources and pull sections, photos, quotes, and data that are appropriate for Grade 1 students to ask questions, investigate, analyze, describe, evaluate, etc. 

Phenomenon: A female opossum carries up to 13 babies at a time in her pouch until they are about 2-3 months old.

The following images represent baby animals (e.g., baby bison, baby deer, baby opossums) that live in the Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, near Lawton, OK. What do these baby animals need? How will they get their needs met? Educators may wish to help students answer these questions using resources such as “How Animals Care for Their Young” or “Baby Opossums”. Both parent and offspring have certain behaviors which help the offspring survive. For example, the young of many animal types make noises to signal the parent that they need to be fed. Parents feed, teach, and protect their offspring. Educators can also let students make observations by watching live webcams such as: Cheetah Cub Cam | Smithsonian's National Zoo, Puppy Playroom at Warrior Canine Connection powered by EXPLORE.org or Kitten Rescue Cat Cam powered by EXPLORE.org.  Through the use of these media resources students can determine patterns of behavior of parents and offspring that help offspring survive.

Phenomenon: A baby duck looks similar to its mom but not identical.

How do these baby ducks look like their mom? What is different about them and their mom? 

Young aloe vera plants and animals often resemble their parents, as seen in this video about “What Baby Animals Look Like”. They may have external structures similar to their parents, as seen in these images of Baby Animals and Their Parents. Educators can show the following video about Animal Parents and their Young  and follow it with a card sort in which students look for body features that show that the animals are the same kind as their parents.  Educators can also use the following lesson found at Exploringnature.org or the Wonder of Science lesson “Alike and Different”. Exploration of these resources will support students in making observations to construct an explanation that young plants and animals are like, but not exactly like their parents.

Engagement Strategies 

• Educators can leverage the Student Actions and Teacher Actions found in the Heredity bundled standards analysis for specific ways of engaging students with these science ideas.

• This example of an elementary science cycle of learning can support educators in developing coherent sequences of learning.
  

• Educators can use the How I Know It strategy to effectively introduce the concept of constructed knowledge as students consider how they've come to know things for a "fact."  More strategies that support students with figuring out science ideas can be found within the Science Engagement Strategies section of the Framework. 

What It Looks Like in the Classroom

In science and engineering, evidence-based effective instruction focuses on students engaging in science and engineering investigations and design to explain phenomena or develop solutions to a problem. This section reflects a science cycle of learning that supports implementing the identified standards within this unit.

"What It Looks Like in the Classroom" is broken into Narrative Parts, written around the different Essential Questions listed at the top. Each Narrative Part includes examples for how to integrate the science and engineering practices, disciplinary core ideas, and crosscutting concepts for each standard, and includes examples of evidence teachers can gather from students that provides information about what they do and do not understand.

Narrative Part 1 of 2

Essential Question: How are parents and their children similar and different?

OAS-S: 

 3-Dimensional Narrative

Evidence of Understanding 

Introduce a phenomenon and support students as they observe and ask questions.

Educators can present a phenomenon (e.g., A baby duck looks similar to its mom but not identical) via firsthand or media.observations that engage students with thinking about how young plants and animals are like, but not exactly like, their parents. Using an “I Notice, I Wonder” routine, students can begin making observations and asking questions about the phenomenon.  

• Questions are relevant and related to the phenomenon. 

Provide students opportunities to collect and record observational data as evidence about patterns of features in plants and animals.

Educators can leverage the baby duck phenomenon, as an example, as students collect data (e.g., first hand observations or from media) to observe that individuals of the same kind of plant or animal are recognizable as similar but can also vary in many ways.  Students can make observations that animals of the same type have similar characteristics. Educators can extend the phenomena so that students can observe other parent and offspring combinations (e.g., duck/chick, cow/calf, dog/pup, baby plants/adult plants)using age appropriate media and/or firsthand experiences. With guidance, students can record and organize their observations in graphical displays (e.g., pictures, charts). 

Educators can assist students with the identification of patterns in animal parents and offspring.  Evidence of the patterns can include students descriptions of:

• Key differences between different types of plants and animals (e.g., features that distinguish dogs versus those that distinguish fish, oak trees vs. bean plants).

• Young plants and animals of the same type have similar, but not identical features (e.g., size and shape of body parts, color and/or type of any hair, leaf shape, stem rigidity).

• Adult plants and animals (i.e., parents) of the same type have similar, but not identical features (e.g., size and shape of body parts, color and/or type of any hair, leaf shape, stem rigidity). 

• Patterns of similarities and differences in features between parents and offspring.

Educators can facilitate Share-Trade or other talk moves, in which students can describe how animal parents and offspring are alike and different as well as patterns they have discovered. 

• Observations support the idea that individuals of the same kind of plant or animal are recognizable as similar but can also vary.

• Information obtained is accurate, relevant, and comes from reliable resources.

• Organized data reveals a pattern between will animal parents and offspring.

Assist students in connecting evidence of observed patterns with reasoning and apply it to new situations.

Educators can facilitate a “Consensus Discussion” to help students talk though connecting the evidence of observed patterns with reasoning. This reasoning can include:

• Young plants and animals are very similar to their parents.

• Young plants and animals are not exactly the same as their parents.

• Similarities and differences in features are evidence that young plants and animals are very much, but not exactly, like their parents. 

• Similarities and differences in features are evidence that although individuals of the same type of animal or plant are recognizable as similar, they can also vary in many ways. 

Educators can support students as they put the evidence and reasoning together to construct an explanation that young plants and animals are like, but not exactly like, their parents.

Educators can provide opportunities for students to apply their explanation to new situations. Students can be given a variety of pictures containing young plants and animals and pictures of their parents (e.g., leaves from the same kind of plant that are the same shape but that differ in size, a particular breed of puppy that looks like its parents but is not exactly the same).  Students can predict which ones match one another (e.g., parent with offspring). Using aThink-Pair-Share routine students can think about prior learning experiences they have had that might help them in understanding and explaining the matches they made. 

• Reasoning is used to connect the evidence and support an explanation.

• Predictions correctly identify the relationships between a parent and the offspring.

Narrative Part 2 of 2

Essential Question: How do inherited behaviors help offspring survive?

OAS-S: 

3-Dimensional Narrative

Evidence of Understanding

Introduce a phenomenon and support students as they observe and ask questions.

Students can begin this bundle by asking questions about a phenomenon (e.g., A female opossum carries up to 13 babies at a time in her pouch until they are about 2-3 months old.). The focus should be on the idea that as offspring develop, parents and their young exhibit certain behaviors which help the young survive. Educators can support students in gathering data or information (e.g., age-appropriate media or reading texts) to determine why the babies are kept in the pouch for so long.  Students can record observations, share ideas, and ask questions using an I Notice, I Wonder routine.  

• Observations and questions are relevant and related to the phenomenon.

Provide students opportunities to obtain information about the patterns of behavior that exist between parents and offspring.

Educators can leverage the mother opossum’s pouch phenomenon, as an example, as students collect information (e.g., grade-appropriate media, reading texts or background knowledge from personal experiences) to observe and obtain information that describes that as offspring develop, parents and their young exhibit certain behaviors which help the young survive (e.g., How parents help babies survive).

Educators can present this phenomenon as a whole class or can assign groups of students to investigate the behavior of other parents (e.g., keeping offspring safe from predators by circling the young, feeding offspring) and offspring behaviors  (e.g., crying, chirping, nuzzling for food) that could help the offspring survive. 

Students can add to the I Notice, I Wonder chart including any questions they may have about the phenomenon and observations they have made about patterns in the behavior of the parents and offspring. This can be followed by a Building Understandings Discussion facilitated by the teacher, to assist students in sharing their observations and helping them understand some of the behavior patterns they have obtained information about:  

• Patterns of offspring behaviors could include vocalizations or signals such as crying or cheeping, 

• Patterns of parent behaviors might include responses such as feeding, comforting, sheltering or protecting the offspring. 

• Information obtained is accurate and relevant.

• Data includes student observations and use of age appropriate media and/or texts.

• Collected information is used to explain patterns in behavior of parents and offspring that help the offspring survive.

Give students an opportunity to apply their new knowledge to other phenomena similar to the original phenomenon.

Educators can provide students with opportunities to review how  Animals Help Their Babies Survive  and apply their knowledge by engaging students with new examples and asking the students to communicate:

• What behavior/s is being observed and how it would help the offspring survive.

• If the behavior is that of the parent or the offspring or possibly a behavior by both (e.g., signal and response).

Examples could include media such as, “A mother raccoon teaching her baby to climb away from danger”, “A baby otter gets swimming lessons from its mother”, “Mother hippo teaches her baby to swim” or age-appropriate books that the educator may have available.

Students can evaluate the information to determine and describe the patterns of what animal parents and offspring do to help offspring survive (e.g., when a baby cries, the mother feeds it; when danger is present, parents protect offspring; some young animals become silent to avoid predators). Students can use data, patterns, and knowledge gathered during their previous investigations. Students can share their conclusions through pictorial drawings, classroom charts or discussion. Communication allows students to participate in the sense making process. 

• Knowledge of parents and the offspring engaging in behaviors that help the offspring survive is applied to new situations.

• Conclusions, obtained from media and reading texts, are applied to describe patterns of parent or offspring behaviors that help offspring survive.