This document outlines a unit plan about how plants and animals are essential to the environment. It includes essential and unit questions, such as how animals adapt to environmental changes and how plants help animals survive. The teacher's role is to guide an experiment showing how a plant grows from a seed. Students will learn about plant and animal parts and life cycles. Parents will receive daily worksheets to support their child's learning. Project-based learning approaches will incorporate real-world problems and technology.

1. Plants & Animals

2. Framing Questions Essential Question: How are plants and animals essential to the environment? Unit Question 1: How do animals adapt to change in the environment? Content Question 1: What types of environmental changes take place? Unit Question 2: How do plants help animals survive? Content Question 2: What do plants need to grow?

3. Summary In this unit students will learn why plants and animals are essential for our environment. Also students will learn what animals need to survive and how they find shelter when needed. During this unit we will do an experiment to see how a plant grows from a seed. Students will be able to explain how differents parts of plants and will be able to see the life cycle of a seed to a plant.

4. My Role As the teacher I will help guide the students when we come to the experiment. I will show them the appropriate way to water and take care of their plant. I will help them understand what our book is saying about the animals habitats and their survival skills.

5. Your Role as a Parent When your child comes home from school this week I will have a worksheet each day. This worksheet will contain either questions to answer or pictures to match on the topic we discussed in class. Your role as a parent is just to make sure that your child has completed these assignments before the next days class.

6. Your Childs Role Your children will need to be able to retain the information that is being given to them this unit. We will be having an assessment at the end of it. If your child has questions on anything that we go over, it is their duty to ask until they understand. They will also need to remember to water their plant everyday and to record the changes that happen over this time.

7. Benefits of the Unit Benefits from this unit that your child will receive is the basic knowledge of how plants and animals survive in the environment. Students will be able to explain how different parts of plants and will be able to see the life cycle of a seed to a plant. Students will be able to identify that mammals have hair, some animals are larger than others, etc.

8. Standards Identify the relationship of structure to function in plants, including roots, stems, leaves, and flowers. Identify characteristics of animals, including behavior, size, and body covering

9. PBL Project-Based Learning is a hands on approach for students. It's more than just reading and doing assignments from a textbook, it's doing projects more often than worksheets. Students deal with real world problems, work within their community, and develop communication skills by working closely with their fellow students. PBL also has students working with all kinds of different technology such as the internet, interactive whiteboards. I will bring the internet into my classroom so that my students will be able to broaden their education for project done in our class.

10. Contact Information Kathleen Pletcher Kpletcher@hhs.edu Telephone-(256)483-9768