BIRDS ON THE WING ALIGNMENT WITH
NEXT GENERATION SCIENCE STANDARDS
The activities in this unit help children understand the basic concepts in the Disciplinary Core Ideas listed here. You can use the following list as a guide for lesson planning. These Disciplinary Core Ideas are taken from Grade Band Endpoints in A Framework for K-12 Science Education. Additionally, our activities give children opportunities to engage in many of the Science and Engineering Practices and reflect on the Crosscutting Concepts as identified in the Next Generation Science Standards.
Grades K-2 Disciplinary Core Ideas
LS1C: All animals need food in order to live and grow. They obtain their food from plants or from other animals. p.147
LS1D: Animals have body parts that capture and convey different kinds of information needed for growth and survival – for example, eyes for light, ears for sounds, and skin for temperature or touch. Animals respond to these inputs with behaviors that help them survive (e.g. find food, run from a predator). p.149
LS2A: Animals depend on their surroundings to get what they need, including food, water, shelter, and a favorable temperature. Animals depend on plants or other animals for food. They use their senses to find food and water and their body parts to gather, catch, eat, and chew the food. p.151
LS4D: There are many different kinds of living things in any area, and they exist in different places on land and in water. p.166
Grades 3-5 Disciplinary Core Ideas
LS1C: Animals and plants alike generally need to take in air and water, animals must take in food, and plants need light and minerals; anaerobic life, such as bacteria in the gut, functions without air. Food provides animals with the materials they need for body repair and growth, is digested to release energy to maintain body warmth and for motion. p.148
LS1D: Different sense receptors are specialized for particular kinds of information, which may then be processed and integrated by an animal’s brain, with some information stored as memories. Animals are able to use their perceptions and memories to guide their actions. Some responses to information are instinctive – that is, animals’ brains are organized so that they do not have to think about how to respond to certain stimuli. p.149
LS2A: Organisms can survive only in environments in which their particular needs are met. p.151-152
LS3A: Many characteristics of organisms are inherited from their parents. Other characteristics result from individuals’ interactions with the environment, which can range from diet to learning. Many characteristics involve both inheritance and environment. p.158
LS4D: Scientists have identified and classified many plants and animals. Populations of organisms live in a variety of habitats, and change in those habitats affects the organisms living there. p.167
Grades 6-8 Disciplinary Core Ideas
LS2A: Organisms and populations of organisms are dependent on their environmental interactions both with other living things and with nonliving factors. Growth of organisms and population increases are limited by access to resources. In any ecosystem, organisms and populations with similar requirements for food, water, oxygen, or other resources may compete with each other for limited resources, access to which consequently constrains their growth and reproduction. p.152
LS4D: Biodiversity is the wide range of existing life forms that have adapted to the variety of conditions on Earth, from terrestrial to marine ecosystems. p.167
BIRDS ON THE WING ALIGNMENT WITH
COMMON CORE STANDARDS
In addition to science content, activities in this unit also can help students to practice the following mathematics and language arts concepts. The Common Core Standards listed here are in addition to the ones that our activities typically address, as listed in the Four Winds document, The Nature Program: Alignment with Learning Standards.
Grades K-2 Common Core Standards
Mathematics Standard K.CC: Count to 100 by ones and tens. Understand the relationship between numbers and quantities; connect counting to cardinality. Count to answer “how many?” questions about as many as 20 things.
Grades 3-5 Common Core Standards
Reading for Informational Text Standard 7: Use information gained from illustrations (e.g., maps, photographs) and the words in a text to demonstrate understanding.
Nearby Nature 