Science Curriculum
During the spring 1998 semester my science class studied the animals, plants and environments of the world. We concentrated on the tropical rainforests of the world and the various habitats on the African continent. The students can studied the concepts for the alternative biology curriculum within a framework of "interesting" information. It is much easier to remember the information within a context than as scattered facts.
Many of the special education students cannot follow the standard curriculum. They need more enrichment as opposed to getting bombarded with new concepts without a framework. They are good at higher order thinking skills when they have the information to use. I utilize a multimedia curriculum: computer software, videos, books (trade, pop-up, big books, etc). The students do a lot of project work: working at their own speeds at map skills, drawing, graphing, reading articles and texts or watching videos to answer questions, etc. The following is an outline for the Rainforest section of the semester.
Some of the information came from these websites.
Introduction:
How are plants and animals adapted to living in their environments?
What are the habitats of the world?
How are they different?
What makes them unique?
What plants live there?
How are they adapted to living there?
What animals live there?
How are they adapted to living there?
1. The Rainforest:
What is the rainforest?
How is the rainforest environment different from other environments?
Where is it located?
How can we use map skills and our knowledge of geography to locate the world's rainforests?
Why does it need to be in the tropical region?
What makes it different?
Why do the plants and animals thrive in the rainforest?
What are the animals of the environment?
What are the different levels of the rainforest?
What is the canopy?
Why do different animals live at different levels?
How is life different at different levels?
How are plants and animals adapted to live there?
Insects?
Birds?
Mammals?
Amphibians?
Why are the frogs poisonous?
Reptiles?
People?
How can groups of people live so far from cities and civilization?
How have they adapted to living in this environment?
What kind of life can they have?
What might they be missing?
What do they gain?
What are the plants of the environment?
Why do different plants live at different levels?
What is the climate of the rainforest?
Why is the rainforest an area with lots of plants and animals?
How does the amount of rain, heat and sunlight affect the numbers and sizes of animals and plants in an environment?
Why is the rainforest being destroyed in many areas of the world?
What is more important: places for specific peoples to live, places for animals to live, or oxygen and possibly medicine for the world?
How do we decide?
How is the food chain demonstrated in the rainforest?
What would happen if the food chain were interrupted?
How is the change of the world's weather changing the rainforest?
How is the deforestation of the world changing the world's weather?
What other ways do humans change the world's environment?
How would cutting down the trees create deserts and other places where it is impossible for man to live?
Much of the information used in the class came from the Internet and connections for information gleaned from the 'Net.
This is a link to my favorite websites.
These are additional classroom resources for teaching science with the Internet
How I used the Internet in teaching about the rainforest.
