Lesson Plan – Bronx Zoo

Unit Topic or theme: Science

Grade: 5th grade

Lesson Topic of theme: Classification of animals

 

Lesson Objectives:

1. The students will be able to identify different animal species that are found at the Bronx Zoo in an interactive website that provides descriptions and facts of these animals.

2. The students will be able to describe its appearance, and its habitat to someone that knows nothing about this animal.

3. The students will be able to answer the seven questions correctly. If they get a question wrong they will be able to go back and retry again until they get the correct answer. They can also read about the animals they get wrong to learn more about them as well.

 

Instructional Technique:

This will be a lectured lesson along with some discussion. They will have the ability to do hands on activities as they will be creating a poster with a partner or by themselves informing students about the animals at the Bronx zoo. There will also be an interactive website that the students will complete, and this is where the students will get to choose the animal they want to teach the class about.   


Instructional Materials:

A computer with internet access to access the online interactive activity

Handout to go along with interactive activity  

Handout to bring to the zoo for their project.

Poster materials such as paper, crayons, and colored pencils

 

Theoretical Perspective:

It’s important for students to be able to classify different animals and recognize them because there are many different categories that animals can be classified into. It is just not animals, but objects and other things as well that can be classified. When we take a field trip to the zoo we want students to get a better understanding of these types of classifications – What’s the animal’s name? It’s location? It’s Lifestyle? It’s food?  And it’s habitat?  This will allow the student more knowledge of what animal they are looking at before reading the sign and know the facts about the animals.
 

Procedure:

A.) Introductory Activity – As an introduction to the activity, we will discuss classification in general. Ask students what we mean by classification and why we classify things. For example, why do we classify certain objects as tools, others as food, and so on? Establish that classification – the arrangement of objects, ideas, or information into groups – makes things easy to find, identify, talk about, and study.

            B.) Step – by – Step –

After discussing what classification is begin by showing students how to access the website and explain to them what they will be doing before we take a visit to the Bronx zoo.

Tell the students they will be completing an interactive activity by selecting the right answers to seven different questions about zoo animals. There is an educational link to all the questions the students get wrong to learn more about those animals. Facts and some websites are also provided when you choose the correct answer.

 Encourage students to learn by not just answering the questions, but also by having them visit each of the other websites.

In order to make sure students are going to each of the websites to learn more about each animal pass out the handout that goes along with this activity. Inform the students that this will be collected and graded.

 After the class has completed the online activity we will come back together as a class and have a discussion on the different animals at the zoo and their classifications.

Next, provide a list of different animals that can be found at the Bronx zoo preferably animals that they learned about online.

Here are a few different animals that can be used: Flamingo, heron, aardvark, Asian elephant, sea lion, Giraffe, grizzle bear, lion, red panda, snow leopard, tiger, and gorilla.   

Explain to the students that when we go to the zoo they should keep a look out for the animal they choose to do their project on.

While at the zoo, they will take notes and answer questions on the handout.

Pass out handout before we go to the zoo.

Explain to students that they will be choosing one animal from the Bronx Zoo to learn more about. They will be creating a poster about this animal that includes the animal’s classifications, its habitat, what it eats, reproduction cycle, and anything else they want to include to teach the class about this animal. Put fun facts and make it interesting for others so they can remember it about that animal. While at the zoo they should also include some information about the animal that they observed. There will be a place on the handout for this.

This poster should teach someone that knows nothing about this animal everything they need to know.

Suggest bringing a camera to the zoo to take pictures to include them on your poster.

Once the poster is complete, the student will present it to the class.

 

C.) Closure – After students have completed the online activity they will write a few short paragraphs on what they learned. Again this will be collected and graded to ensure the students learned something from this lesson. We will come back together as a class again and answer any final questions the students may have and this is when the teacher can make any last comments before the class takes the trip to the zoo (the next day).

D.) Adaptations for Different Learners – Every learner is different. In the interactive activity if a student is behind in reading or is having trouble they should raise their hand and the teacher will go over to them and read it to them. The teacher can also decide whether they want to do this activity as a class or individually. We suggest doing it as a class if there are a lot of readers in your class who are having difficulties. If a student is having trouble, they can also do hands on activities such as finding objects around the room and classifying them and also by finding images of animals and asking them to name/classify them.

            E.) Homework – For homework the students will begin to research an animal online that they find interesting, and should write a short paragraph about a few of the characteristics about that particular animal. This will help them when they create their poster.  
 

Evaluation: My lesson objectives are: The students will be able to identify different animal species that are found at the Bronx Zoo in an interactive website that provides descriptions and facts of these animals. The students will be able to describe its appearance, and its habitat to someone that knows nothing about this animal. The students will also be able to answer the seven questions correctly. By using the worksheets it will allow the students to get a better understanding of classifying animals while is shows teachers what the students have learned throughout the lesson. On each of the websites students can read about the animals they get wrong to learn more about them as well. The students will be able to identify different animal species that are found at the Bronx Zoo with the interactive website because they will read a variety of different information on a certain animal. There will be educational websites to provide background information on the animals as well. Pictures will also be available to help the students learn about these animals. With the information provided and the facts given students will be able to tell someone else about this animal and by looking at the picture they can describe their physical appearance

 

      Worksheet 1 ~ Handout for the Zoo
1. What are some interesting facts the zoo provides about your animal?

 

2. What do you notice about the animal’s habitat/home? i.e. lives in water, lots of trees, ect.

 

 

3. Write down any observations you saw. Was your animal interacting with another animal of the same classifications? Or did it interactive with a different animal? What did it spend most of its time doing while you were observing it?

 

4.Did you get to watch them feed your animal? If you did, what kinds of foods does it eat?

Worksheet 2 ~ Handout for interactive activity

1. This animal likes to travel or hunt in packs of 4-7 and will sacrifice themselves in order to save their family’s unit. What animal is this?

 

2. This female animal can only reproduce once every three years because the babies stay with their mother for 2 and a half years. Fun Fact: They can run 30 miles per hour! What animal is this?

 

3. What are the three different species of the Golden Monkey?

 

4. Describe the physical appearance of what a sloth looks like?

 

5. True or False: Harbor seals snort, hiss, growl, or sneeze in the air as a threat to another seal but the harbor seals mainly vocalize underwater.

 

6. I am also called a killer whale and am one of the most powerful predators?

 

7. How many teeth do gorillas have and what type of teeth do they have?

 

8. What are two interesting facts about the lions?

 

9. This animal can live up to 25 years in the wild.

 

 10. What does the aardvarks name mean?

 

11. An Asian elephant spends how many months in the womb and weights how much when it comes out of the womb?

 

12. What’s one animal a bison can defend themselves against?

 

13. Describe the Habitat herons live in?

 

 14. These birds almost became extinct in 1941 but with the help of a bird program became un-extinct. How many birds were there in 1941 and then after the program were installed? What is the name of this bird?

 

5.