Unit Lesson Plans
Basic Units of Life
Day 1, Section 1:
Journal:
Have students answer this question in their journal:
Why can't you use your teeth to breathe? Why can't you use your arm muscles to digest food?
Activity:
Divide the class into small groups. Provide each group with a pictures of tissues, organs, and organ systems. Have the students arrange the pictures into concept maps. Encourage them to notice unusual relationships between organs. For example, the stomach and the heart may seem very different, but they are made of muscles tissue, and both function by holding the moving substances through their cavities.
Discussion:
Ask students to list all the ways they use their muscles. Responses will probably include walking, running, riding a bike, swimming. Explain that muscles are also involved in swallowing food (tongue), digestion (stomach), and blinking eyes (eyelids). Sometimes muscles act voluntarily (jumping), and sometimes they act involuntarily (the heart beating).
Homework:
Not all living things have the same kinds of tissues and organs. Yet all must perform similar life processes. Have students research and compare the structures a fish uses to breathe and those that a human uses. Their report should also answer the question, "What parts of the human and fish respiratory systems are similar?" (Even though a fish has gills and a human has lungs, both have cells that exchange and transport oxygen and carbon dioxide.)
Day 2, Section 1:
Journal :
To help students understand the levels of organization within an organism, instruct them to write the following headings on the board:
-Cell, Tissue, Organ, Organ System
Tell students to write these headings across the top of their paper and list at least two examples of each under the headings. Then ask students to share their information with their classmates.
Activity (See Materials Tab for directions):
A school system's job is to educate students at all levels. The different schools (elementary, middle and high school) are like the different organs within an organ system. Groups of teachers at each school work together to teach a specific grade level. If each group of teachers can be thoughts of as tissue, what would that make each individual teacher? What other examples can you use to represent the parts of an organ system? Explain your answer.
Mini Quiz:
Have students choose a human organ system and identify its component organs. Then ask students to describe the function of these organs and their relationship to one another in a concept map.
Day 3, Section 2:
Bellringer:
Why weren't cells discovered until 1665? What invention made their discovery possible? Write your answer in your journal.
Activity:
Before starting this section, have students model Robert Hooke's discovery. Divide the class into small groups and provide each group with a microscope and prepared slide of cork cells. Have them describe and sketch their observations in their journal.
Demonstration:
Materials (wire mesh food strainer, 250mL of sand, 250mL of water, 250mL of gravel similar to that used to line fish tanks, 250mL of marbles or large pebbles, pan to place under strainer). Place each material in the strainer, and have students observe and explain the results. Tell students that the cell membrane functions somewhat like the strainer. It lets some materials pass through, but not others. Explain also that the process works in both directions.
Read:
Page 12 and 13
Quick Lab "Do Bacteria Taste Good?"
Using a cotton swab, put a small dot of yogurt on a plastic microscope slide. Add a drop of water, and use the cotton swab to stir. Add a plastic cover-slip, and examine the slide using a microscope. Draw what you see. The masses of rob0shaped bacteria feed on the sugar in milk and convert it into lactic acid. Lactic acid causes milk to thicken, which makes yogurt.
Day 4, Section 3:
Bellringer:
List three differences between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells.
Discussion:
Ask students if they can feel the flurry of activity within their cells that keeps them alive? Ask how they know their cells are working. Explain that there is a tendency to consider life processes as activities performed only by whole organisms. What we sometimes forget is that the plan or animal can do these things only because its cells are doing these things.
Demonstration:
Cell Wall: With a stick, a mushroom, and your own hand, you can illustrate the difference between a rigid cell wall and a flexible cell membrane like that found in human skin cells. Ben the stick and it will break. Ben the mushroom and it will come apart. Make a fist and your skin stretches to accommodate the flexing of muscles and bone joints. If we had rigid cell walls like plants, we would find it extremely difficult to move.
Journal:
Because all multicellular plants and animals are composed of eukaryotic cells, stress that the eukaryotic cell can be entity of itself, not just a component of a large organism. Have students research one-celled eukaryotic organism, like a yeast or a one celled protists, and compare them with eukaryotic cells that are part of a multicellular plant or animal. Students should include drawings and record their findings in their journals.
Day 5, Section 3:
Use this worksheet to fill in parts of an animal cell and plant cell. Write the function, what is looks like and where it is located. Have students use the website www.cellsalive.com to complete the worksheet. Also see the Venn diagram for plant cells vs. animal cells to help students find the similarities and differences.
Homework:
Making Models: Invite the class to make edible cells at home and bring them into class. They can decorate a muffin, a cracker, a piece of pita bread, and English muffin, a pizza, or any other base they like and decorate their choice with edible organelles. Before they eat their models, they should show them to the rest of the class and explain the way they've represented the cell's structure in food.
Day 6: Assessment Day
Journal:
Have students answer this question in their journal:
Why can't you use your teeth to breathe? Why can't you use your arm muscles to digest food?
Activity:
Divide the class into small groups. Provide each group with a pictures of tissues, organs, and organ systems. Have the students arrange the pictures into concept maps. Encourage them to notice unusual relationships between organs. For example, the stomach and the heart may seem very different, but they are made of muscles tissue, and both function by holding the moving substances through their cavities.
Discussion:
Ask students to list all the ways they use their muscles. Responses will probably include walking, running, riding a bike, swimming. Explain that muscles are also involved in swallowing food (tongue), digestion (stomach), and blinking eyes (eyelids). Sometimes muscles act voluntarily (jumping), and sometimes they act involuntarily (the heart beating).
Homework:
Not all living things have the same kinds of tissues and organs. Yet all must perform similar life processes. Have students research and compare the structures a fish uses to breathe and those that a human uses. Their report should also answer the question, "What parts of the human and fish respiratory systems are similar?" (Even though a fish has gills and a human has lungs, both have cells that exchange and transport oxygen and carbon dioxide.)
Day 2, Section 1:
Journal :
To help students understand the levels of organization within an organism, instruct them to write the following headings on the board:
-Cell, Tissue, Organ, Organ System
Tell students to write these headings across the top of their paper and list at least two examples of each under the headings. Then ask students to share their information with their classmates.
Activity (See Materials Tab for directions):
A school system's job is to educate students at all levels. The different schools (elementary, middle and high school) are like the different organs within an organ system. Groups of teachers at each school work together to teach a specific grade level. If each group of teachers can be thoughts of as tissue, what would that make each individual teacher? What other examples can you use to represent the parts of an organ system? Explain your answer.
Mini Quiz:
Have students choose a human organ system and identify its component organs. Then ask students to describe the function of these organs and their relationship to one another in a concept map.
Day 3, Section 2:
Bellringer:
Why weren't cells discovered until 1665? What invention made their discovery possible? Write your answer in your journal.
Activity:
Before starting this section, have students model Robert Hooke's discovery. Divide the class into small groups and provide each group with a microscope and prepared slide of cork cells. Have them describe and sketch their observations in their journal.
Demonstration:
Materials (wire mesh food strainer, 250mL of sand, 250mL of water, 250mL of gravel similar to that used to line fish tanks, 250mL of marbles or large pebbles, pan to place under strainer). Place each material in the strainer, and have students observe and explain the results. Tell students that the cell membrane functions somewhat like the strainer. It lets some materials pass through, but not others. Explain also that the process works in both directions.
Read:
Page 12 and 13
Quick Lab "Do Bacteria Taste Good?"
Using a cotton swab, put a small dot of yogurt on a plastic microscope slide. Add a drop of water, and use the cotton swab to stir. Add a plastic cover-slip, and examine the slide using a microscope. Draw what you see. The masses of rob0shaped bacteria feed on the sugar in milk and convert it into lactic acid. Lactic acid causes milk to thicken, which makes yogurt.
Day 4, Section 3:
Bellringer:
List three differences between prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells.
Discussion:
Ask students if they can feel the flurry of activity within their cells that keeps them alive? Ask how they know their cells are working. Explain that there is a tendency to consider life processes as activities performed only by whole organisms. What we sometimes forget is that the plan or animal can do these things only because its cells are doing these things.
Demonstration:
Cell Wall: With a stick, a mushroom, and your own hand, you can illustrate the difference between a rigid cell wall and a flexible cell membrane like that found in human skin cells. Ben the stick and it will break. Ben the mushroom and it will come apart. Make a fist and your skin stretches to accommodate the flexing of muscles and bone joints. If we had rigid cell walls like plants, we would find it extremely difficult to move.
Journal:
Because all multicellular plants and animals are composed of eukaryotic cells, stress that the eukaryotic cell can be entity of itself, not just a component of a large organism. Have students research one-celled eukaryotic organism, like a yeast or a one celled protists, and compare them with eukaryotic cells that are part of a multicellular plant or animal. Students should include drawings and record their findings in their journals.
Day 5, Section 3:
Use this worksheet to fill in parts of an animal cell and plant cell. Write the function, what is looks like and where it is located. Have students use the website www.cellsalive.com to complete the worksheet. Also see the Venn diagram for plant cells vs. animal cells to help students find the similarities and differences.
Homework:
Making Models: Invite the class to make edible cells at home and bring them into class. They can decorate a muffin, a cracker, a piece of pita bread, and English muffin, a pizza, or any other base they like and decorate their choice with edible organelles. Before they eat their models, they should show them to the rest of the class and explain the way they've represented the cell's structure in food.
Day 6: Assessment Day