Week 3 at Science After School

Survival in the Sahara.

Taught by Miss Mackenzie and Miss Vanessa 

During week three of Science After School, Vanessa and I taught the pimary grades all about the wild things of the Sahara Desert. We focused on three main animals, they were the Camel, The Stirped Hyena and the Desert Frog. Yes frogs do live in the desert, and as our students learned, they live near the oasis.

Below is a picture of our homemade oasis.

 

We started our lesson with the exploration.

 Here the students got yo dig around in the sand around their oasis to find clues that would link them to the three animals we are going to learn about. the clues had to do with the animals survival in the climate of the sahara, The cluse showed the animal's foot print, their eyes along with their skin/fur. Also in the sand was burried pictures of what the animals ate.

The first thing we talked about after the students got a change to dig and talk about what they found, was the climate of the sahara. We then campared that climate to what we experience around here, especially during the hot summer months. The students learned that the Sahara is a Non-Polar Desert, which mean it is really hot during the day and then it get really cold at night.

After the students learned about the climate they learned about the three different animals that they discovered using the clues from their osasis. First came the Camel and what he looks like and how he gets his food. The students learned about his long eyelashes and the tough skin on his knees. Next was the Frog that obviously relies on the Oasis to keep it moist, and how they are cold blooded, so theri body temperature changes as the air temperature changes. The final animal was the Striped Hyena, the students learned that it must stay in the shade to stay cool during the day, but it comes out at night to hunt for its food, therefore it is Nocturnal.

After the class learned about the animals look like, they learned about how they animals went about getting foor and water. The learned that the Camel eats almost anything and since it has leathery lips (that aren't too kissable) it can eat the cacti that most other desert animals would stay away from. The Frog relies on the Oasis for its survival and the Striped Hyena feeds at night and it is a scavenger so it eats things that have died.

From the Exploration we went to the Application.

During this part of the lesson the students looked about creatures that live here in WV, and had to draw adaptations they would need in order to survive in the desert. The animals the students looked at were; a fish, a guinea pig and a turtle. There were about three students at each table, and each table had a different animal to look at and create an adapation for. Most of the students who were at the fish table simply drew the fish in the oasis, because they knew the fish has to have water to survive. For the turtle those students put him near the oasis, so that he could be in quick reach of the water he needs to survive. When it came to the giunea pig, the students came up with a few more ideas such as giving it tough fur like the camel had on its knees. Both the turtle and the pig table wanted their animals to be able to eat cacti, so they gave thier animals leathery mouthes. 

Once we were done with the body of the lesson, we reviewed the vocabulary that we had learned that day. Those words were: Desert, Oasis, Climate, Nocturnal, Non-Polar Desert.

After the vocabulary review the class learned a poem called Exploring the Desert. For the poem we echo read, with Vanessa saying it first and me with the class repeating in back to her.

When we were all done the students finally got to go look at the animals like they had been waiting to do all evenign.

Here is our Classroom