[Clarification Statement: Examples of patterns could include that plants make their own food while animals do not, the requirement of plants to have light, or that all living things need water.]

Prompt the discussion by showing images of plants and animals from books in the Needs of Plants and Animals unit. Ask:

• What do plants need to survive?
• What do animals need to survive?
• What is similar about what plants and animals need to survive?
• What is different?

[Clarification Statement: Examples of qualitative observations could include descriptions of the weather (such as sunny, cloudy, rainy, or warm); examples of quantitative observations could include numbers of sunny, windy, or rainy days in a month. Examples of patterns could include that it is cooler in the morning than in the afternoon or the number of sunny days versus cloudy days in different months.]

Keep a daily class weather chart. Focus students’ attention on several months of weather data. Ask:

• What can we say about the weather this past month at our school?
• Describe the different kinds of weather we have had.
• How many sunny days have we had this month? How many rainy days?
• Were there more sunny days this month or in February?
• What was the coldest month?
• What other patterns do you notice?

[Clarification Statement: Examples of plants and animals changing their environment could include a squirrel digging in the ground to hide its food, tree roots breaking concrete, or a dandelion spreading seeds to generate more dandelions.]

Prompt the discussion by showing images from these two books from the Needs of Plants and Animals unit:

• Pages 14-15, 19 of the Investigating Monarchs book
• Any pages from the Above and Below book

[Clarification Statement: Examples of relationships could include that deer eat buds and leaves, and therefore they usually live in forested areas; grasses need sunlight so they often grow in meadows. Plants, animals, and their surroundings make up a system.]

Provide students with cards from the Animals and their Foods card set from the Needs of Plants and Animals unit. Invite them to arrange the pictures of animals with pictures of plants they might eat. Ask:

• Why did you put these pictures together?
• Where do you think an animal that eats this plant would live? Why?
• Where do you think a plant like this would live? Why?

Have students draw a habitat where they think the animal and plant they selected would live, and place their cards on it.

[Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on local forms of severe weather and safety precautions associated with that severe weather.]

Prompt the discussion by showing page 3 of the book, Tornado! from the Sunlight and Weather unit. Ask:

• What is Lynn Burse’s job?
• Why is her job important?
• Page through the book, and invite students to ask questions about the purpose of weather forecasting.
• What kinds of severe weather do you know about?
• What would we need to know to prepare for and protect ourselves from severe weather?

[Clarification Statement: Examples of human impact on the land could include cutting trees to produce paper and using resources to produce bottles. Examples of solutions could include reusing paper and recycling cans and bottles.]

Show the Investigating Monarchs book. Ask:

• What can we do to help Monarchs survive?

Show images of water and air pollution, ideally in your local area. Ask:

• What can we do to make sure that our water stays clean?
• What can we do to make sure that our air stays clean?

[Clarification Statement: Examples of pushes or pulls could include a string attached to an object being pulled, a person pushing an object, a person stopping a rolling ball, or two objects colliding and pushing on each other. Content includes contact forces with different relative strengths or different directions, but not both at the same time.]

Ask:

• Show how you can make the pinball go a long distance. What kind of a push caused it do that?
• Show how you can make the pinball go a short distance. What kind of a push caused it do that?
• Show how you can make the pinball go left? Right? What kinds of pushes caused the pinball to move in that direction?

[Clarification Statement: Examples of problems requiring a solution could include having a marble or other object move a certain distance, follow a particular path, and knock down other objects. Examples of solutions could include tools such as a ramp to increase the speed of the object and a structure that would cause an object such as a marble or ball to turn or using rope or string to pull an object. Content does not include friction as a mechanism for change in speed.]

Using the class pinball machine from the Pushes and Pulls unit, have student volunteers demonstrate causing the pinball to move fast, move slow, and change direction. After each demonstration, ask:

• Does our pinball machine work to make a pinball move different speeds (change direction)?
• Can you think of a way we could change the pinball machine to make it better at changing speed (direction)?

Have students return to their box models and add a target. Ask:

• Can you figure out a way to cause your pinball to hit this target?

[Clarification Statement: Sunlight heats Earth’s natural surfaces including sand, soil, rocks, or water and the unnatural surfaces including man-made objects like plastics, asphalt, or concrete. Examples of observations could be relative changes in temperature of surfaces exposed to sunlight.]

First, have them predict where the warmest places on the playground will be, and at what time it will be warmest. Then, have them make observations. Ask:

• Where is it warmest on our school’s playground? What is your evidence?
• When will it feel warmest? What is your evidence?

[Clarification Statement: Examples of structures could include umbrellas, canopies, or tents that minimize the warming effect of the sun.]

Ask:

• How will the structure you made work to make this area cooler?

[Clarification Statement: Examples of human problems that can be solved by mimicking plant or animal solutions could include designing clothing or equipment to protect bicyclists by mimicking turtle shells, acorn shells or animal scales; stabilizing structures by mimicking animal tails or roots on plants; keeping out intruders by mimicking thorns on branches or animal quills; and detecting intruders by mimicking eyes or ears.]

Remind the class of the Animal and Plant Defenses unit, when they designed a solution for protecting the aquarium’s food supply inspired by plant and animal defenses. Have them look through the book Spikes, Spines, and Shells and think of a human problem that could be solved by mimicking the structure of a plant or animal’s external parts. Provide them with materials to create their biomimicry solution.

[Clarification Statement: Examples of patterns of behaviors could include the signals that offspring make (such as crying, cheeping, and other vocalizations) and the responses of the parents (such as feeding, comforting, and protecting the offspring).]

Have students view images in videos and books that depict parents and offspring interacting. Teachers can use the videos from the Animal and Plant Defenses unit or the Parents and Offspring book from that same unit or provide them with different videos and books. Ask:

• What patterns do you notice in how parents are helping their offspring survive?
• What patterns do you notice in how offspring behave?

[Clarification Statement: Examples of observations could include leaves from the same kind of plant are similar in shape but can differ in size or a particular breed of dog looks like its parents but is not exactly the same.]

Provide students with images in videos and books, go out into nature where students can observe plants, or visit a zoo. Ask:

• How are young plants (or animals) like their parents?
• What is your evidence?
• In what ways are they different?

[Clarification Statement: Examples of patterns could include that the sun and moon appear to rise in one part of the sky, move across the sky, and set; and stars other than our sun are visible at night but not during the day.]

If the Sky Mural from Spinning Earth unit is posted in the classroom, use it as it is a record of students’ observations on the location of the Sun in the sky. Ask:

• What patterns do you see?
• Can you predict where the Sun will be tomorrow at this time?
• What is your evidence?

Have students look at the Patterns of Earth and Space book and talk about the Moon (pages 24-25) and the stars (pages 28-31). Ask:

• Do you see a pattern in where the Moon appears in the sky?
• Can you predict where it will be at different times of day?
• Do you see a pattern in where the stars appear in the sky?

[Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on relative comparisons of the amount of daylight in the winter to the amount in the spring, fall, or summer.]

Have the class keep a daylight journal, recording when it becomes light each day and when it becomes dark. Ask:

• What patterns do you notice in how much daylight there is at different times of the year?

[Clarification Statement: Examples of vibrating materials that make sound could include tuning forks or plucking a stretched string. Examples of how sound can make matter vibrate could include holding a piece of paper near a speaker making sound or holding an object near a vibrating tuning fork.]

Provide students with the kinds of sound makers that they investigated in Chapter 4 of the Light and Sound unit. Ask:

• Can vibrating materials make sound?
• How could you investigate that question?

After students have had the opportunity to investigate, ask:

• What have you concluded?
• What is your evidence?

Then, repeat this process with the question: Can sound make materials vibrate?

[Clarification Statement: Examples of observations could include those made in a completely dark room, a pinhole box, or a video of a cave explorer with a flashlight. Illumination could be from an external light source or by an object giving off its own light. This can be explored with light tables, 3-way mirrors, overhead projectors or flashlights.]

Remind students of how in the Light and Sound unit, they: tried to make the classroom completely dark; read a book about searching for a completely dark place; and watched a video in a cave. Provide them with the opportunity to revisit these experiences. Ask:

• What evidence do we have about whether it is possible to see objects in the dark?

[Clarification Statement: Examples of materials could include those that are transparent (such as clear plastic), translucent (such as wax paper), opaque (such as cardboard), or reflective (such as a mirror).]

Provide students with the materials they used in the Light and Sound unit. Have them plan how to test each material in order to see what happens when the light shines on the material. Ask:

• What patterns did you notice?

[Clarification Statement: Examples of devices could include a light source to send signals, paper cup and string “telephones,” or a pattern of drumbeats.]

Ask:

• What is the solution you designed?
• How does it solve the problem of communicating over a distance?
• What could improve your solution?

[Clarification Statement: Changes that organisms go through during their life form a pattern. For plant life cycles there is an emphasis on flowering plants.]

Have students look through the Handbook of Traits, the reference book for the Inheritance and Traits unit. This book has two-page spreads, each dedicated to describing the traits of 20 different organisms, and includes a graphic of the life cycle for each. Challenge students to draw a life cycle diagram that is true for all plants, all fish, or all mammals. Ask:

• What is common about the life cycle of the group of organisms you have chosen? What is common about the life cycle of all organisms?

[Clarification Statement: Arguments could include examples of group behavior such as division of labor in a bee colony, flocks of birds staying together to confuse or intimidate predators, or wolves hunting in packs to more efficiently catch and kill prey.]

Ask:

• Do wolves rely on each other to survive?
• What is your evidence?
• How would this help them survive?

[Clarification Statement: Emphasis is on organisms other than humans and does not include genetic mechanisms of inheritance and prediction of traits. Data can include drawings, photographs, measurements, or written observations. Patterns are the similarities and differences in traits shared between offspring and their parents, or among siblings.]

Have students revisit the Scorpion Scientist book, from the Inheritance and Traits unit. Ask:

• Look at the cover picture. Based on this, what can you say is similar about scorpions? What can vary?

Then have them revisit the Handbook of Traits, the reference book for the Inheritance and Traits unit. Ask:

• What evidence can you find that plants and animals have traits inherited from parents?
• What evidence can you find that variation of these traits exists in a group of similar organisms?

[Clarification Statement: Examples of the environment affecting a trait could include normally tall plants grown with insufficient water are stunted; or an animal that is given too much food and little exercise may become overweight.]

Remind students of how they figured out how Wolf #44 got its traits, in the Inheritance and Traits unit. Ask:

• What evidence do you have to support the explanation that some of Wolf #44’s traits came from the environment?

Invite them to think more broadly about other animals and plants.

• What evidence do you have that other animals’ traits come from the environment?
• Do plants also have traits that come from the environment? What is your evidence?

[Clarification Statement: Examples of data could include type, size, and distributions of fossil organisms. Examples of fossils and environments could include marine fossils found on dry land, tropical plant fossils found in arctic areas, and fossils of extinct organisms and relative ages.]

Provide each student with a copy of the Fossil Skulls: Clues into Past Environments student sheet (found in the digital resources section of Lesson 2.3 in the Environments and Survival unit). Ask:

• What inferences can you make about past environments based on the structure and function of these fossil skulls?

[Clarification Statement: Examples of cause and effect relationships could be plants that have larger thorns than other plants may be less likely to be eaten or animals that have better camouflage coloration than other animals may be more likely to survive and therefore more likely to leave offspring.]

Remind students of the Environments and Survival unit when they investigated grove snails. Ask:

• What evidence do you have that the variation in the colors of grove snail shells (yellow or banded) was an advantage (overall) for grove snails’ survival?

[Clarification Statement: Examples of evidence could include needs and characteristics of the organisms and habitats involved. The organisms and their habitats make up a system in which the parts depend on each other.]

Again, have students recall the Environments and Survival unit. Have them go to the Environments and Survival modeling tools from Lesson 2.5 (Traits and Survival A and Traits and Survival B). After students have interacted with the modeling tools, ask:

• Choose one of the two environments (Traits and Survival A or B). Why do you think some animals are more likely to survive and others are less likely to survive? What is your evidence?
• Are there animals that wouldn’t survive at all? Why do you think so?

[Clarification Statement: Examples of environmental changes could include changes in land characteristics, water distribution, temperature, food, and other biological communities Louisiana specific examples could include impacts related to levees, dams, crop rotations, irrigation systems, hunting limits, diversion canals, or sea level rise.]

This time, have students go to the Environment Change modeling tool in Lesson 3.3 and drag organisms onto both arrows to show which organisms are the most likely to survive and which are the least likely to survive in each environment (before and after an environmental change). Ask:

• What problem will this environmental change cause?
• What solution might there be to this problem?
• Do you think the solution would be good for the animals or bad for the animals? Why do you think that?

[Clarification Statement: Examples of data could include average temperature, precipitation, and wind direction. Examples of data representation could include pictographs and bar graphs.]

Provide students with average high temperatures for each month for an entire year, from the region where your school is located. After they have organized the data, ask:

• What is the typical high temperature in our region in spring? Summer? Fall? Winter?

[Clarification Statement: Information could include rainfall and temperature data.]

Have students search through World Weather Handbook, the reference book for the Weather and Climate unit. Ask them to choose two locations, and describe what the climate in that area is like, by combining temperature and precipitation data.

[Clarification Statement: Examples of design solutions to weather-related hazards could include barriers to prevent flooding (including levees), wind resistant roofs, tornado shelters and lightning rods.]

Remind students of the structures they designed and tested to withstand a hurricane, in Chapter 4 of the Weather and Climate unit. Ask:

• Make a claim about the effectiveness of your design solution.
• What is your evidence to support your claim?
• Can you think of a way to improve your solution?

[Clarification Statement: Examples could include an unbalanced force on one side of an object that can make it start moving, or balanced forces pushing on an object from opposite sides will not produce any motion at all. Investigations include one variable at a time: number, size, or direction of forces.]

Provide students with materials from the Balancing Forces unit. After they have conducted their investigations, ask:

• What happens to the motion of an object when the forces acting on the object are balanced? What is your evidence?
• What happens to the motion of an object when the forces acting on the object are unbalanced? What is your evidence

[Clarification Statement: Examples of motion with a predictable pattern could include a child swinging in a swing, a ball rolling back and forth in a bowl, or two children on a seesaw.]

Demonstrate an object swinging on a string. Ask:

• What do you predict the motion of this object will be five seconds from now? In one minute? In five minutes?

[Clarification Statement: Examples of an electric force could include the force on hair from an electrically charged balloon or the electrical forces between a charged rod and pieces of paper; examples of a magnetic force could include the force between two permanent magnets, the force between an electromagnet and steel paperclips, or the force exerted by one magnet versus the force exerted by two magnets. Examples of cause and effect relationships could include how the distance between objects affects strength of the force or how the orientation of magnets affects the direction of the magnetic force.]

Provide students with the Floating Paperclip Devices from Chapter 4 of the Balancing Forces unit, and with multiple ring magnets. Ask:

• What questions do you have that you could try and answer with the Floating Paperclip Device and more magnets?
• What did you figure out about your question?

[Clarification Statement: Examples of problems could include constructing a latch to keep a door shut or creating a device to keep two moving objects from touching each other.]

Have students draw and describe their magnetic invention.