Clements/Parsons Elementary 3rd graders Emily Cook, Lukas Trevino and Michael Griffin discuss how they should build their plant and animal models for their assigned habitat and how it should look as part of their STEMscopes science project.Article Image Alt Text

Clements/Parsons students learn about environment adaptation

“Some of the organisms they created used a lot of imagination but incorporated every element the project required.”

By WENDY SLEDD

Special to Leader-Press

The kangaroo rat lives in a burrow which does not get too hot or too cold in the desert and maintains more humid air inside. Scorpions and web spiders have a thick outer covering which reduces moisture loss. These are just two of the ways that these animals and insects have adapted to their desert environment.

Clements/Parsons Elementary Teacher Samantha Sunthonlap's 3rd grade class is recreating its own habitats to study how living things adapt to environments. They created both real and imaginary plants and animals for each kind of habitat. The project was chosen from the district’s science curriculum, STEMscopes.

The project sounded like a lot of fun, and my students are very artistic. So, I knew they would love it,” Sunthonlap said. “Some of the organisms they created used a lot of imagination but incorporated every element the project required.”

STEMscopes is an online science curriculum program that provides hands-on activities, assessments, problem-based-learning, and teacher support resources. It is aligned to Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills and meets the rigor and depth of both the STAAR test.

First, students played a game to get their minds going about adaptations by having their table partners guess the environment they lived in after telling them a structure or adaptation of a plant or animal,” Sunthonlap said. “Students were then given time to design a plant and an animal, real or imaginary, which had at least two structures that help them to adapt to their environment.”

Each group was given a different environment--tundra, rainforest, woodland forest, desert, ocean or pond. Then, they created their plants and animals using various craft items and recyclables. 3rd grader Emily Cook learned that different animals have different habitats and acquired traits.

The hardest thing about working on the project was working with my group and agreeing on how our plant and animal looked and how they would be built," she said.

The hands-on project aligns with TEKS in requiring students to make informed choices about conserving out resources, learn the structures and functions of plants and animals that help them adapt to their environment, re-create the natural world through models and be able to verbally communicate their findings.

Christina Garretson, a 3rd grade student at Clements/Parsons Elementary puts the finishing touches on her organism that she has created to live in the pond environment that she was assigned as part of the class’ STEMscopes science project.

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