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Integrating Literacy and Life Science (elementary)
In this course, participants will learn about the structures and behaviors of organisms that enable them to live successfully in their environments and how this scientific content can be enhanced through literacy integration.
Overview
Participants in this course will learn about the structures and behaviors of organisms that enable them to live successfully in their environments and how this scientific content can be enhanced through literacy integration. A focus of the workshop is to help participants learn to integrate literacy and science by using literacy strategies such as science notebooks/journals, concept maps, and literature to enhance their lessons. A notebook strand in several sessions provides more information and ideas about teaching with science notebooks. In addition, participants will hone their content knowledge about the basic needs of living things, habitats, interactive relationships, food webs and adaptations. As part of the work in this course, participants will learn to keep their own science notebook and complete a Final Project, which includes a reflection on the investigations in the notebook.
Goals and Products
This course will enable participants to:
- Learn about national, state, and local standards associated with teaching about living organisms and habitats
- Learn science content needed to teach students about living organisms and habitats
- Engage in the “doing” of science through keeping a science notebook and observing a local habitat
- Incorporate reading and writing tasks in the science classroom in order to improve student achievement
- Gain strategies and tools for incorporating literacy activities in the teaching of science content
- Build their own library of resources, including readings, videos and websites to enhance their teaching about living organisms and habitats
- Learn to use hands-on science and literacy activities in their teaching about living organisms and habitats
Format and Requirements
This course is divided into six one-week sessions which each include readings, an activity and an online discussion among course participants. The time for completing each session is estimated to be two to four hours.
The outline for the course is as follows:
| Session 1 | What We Need and Where We Live |
| Session 2 | Using Writing to Promote Deeper Understanding of Habitats |
| Session 3 | Understanding Ecosystems and Species Interactions |
| Session 4 | Investigating Ecosystems and Food Webs |
| Session 5 | Enhancing Students’ Understanding of Adaptations through Reading and Literature |
| Session 6 | Integrating Assessment |
Prerequisites
This is an introductory course for teachers, technology specialists, curriculum specialists, professional development specialists, or other school personnel. Participants are expected to have regular access to computers and proficiency with e-mail and current web browsers.
Content and Technology Standards
National Science Standards
In grades K-4, all students should:
- Develop an understanding that organisms have basic needs. For example, animals need air, water, and food; plants require air, water, nutrients, and light. Organisms can survive only in environments in which their needs can be met. The world has many different environments, and distinct environments support the life of different types of organisms.
- Develop an understanding that each plant or animal has different structures that serve different functions in growth, survival, and reproduction. For example, humans have distinct body structures for walking, holding, seeing, and talking.
- Develop an understanding that an organism's patterns of behavior are related to the nature of that organism's environment, including the kinds and numbers of other organisms present, the availability of food and resources, and the physical characteristics of the environment. When the environment changes, some plants and animals survive and reproduce, and others die or move to new locations.
- Develop an understanding that all organisms cause changes in the environment where they live. Some of these changes are detrimental to the organism or other organisms, whereas others are beneficial.
In grades 5-8, all students should:
- Develop an understanding that populations of organisms can be categorized by the function they serve in an ecosystem. Plants and some micro-organisms are producers--they make their own food. All animals, including humans, are consumers, which obtain food by eating other organisms. Decomposers, primarily bacteria and fungi, are consumers that use waste materials and dead organisms for food. Food webs identify the relationships among producers, consumers, and decomposers in an ecosystem.
- Develop an understanding that for ecosystems, the major source of energy is sunlight. Energy entering ecosystems as sunlight is transferred by producers into chemical energy through photosynthesis. That energy then passes from organism to organism in food webs.
- Develop an understanding that the number of organisms an ecosystem can support depends on the resources available and abiotic factors, such as quantity of light and water, range of temperatures, and soil composition. Given adequate biotic and abiotic resources and no disease or predators, populations (including humans) increase at rapid rates. Lack of resources and other factors, such as predation and climate, limit the growth of populations in specific niches in the ecosystem.
- Develop an understanding that biological evolution accounts for the diversity of species developed through gradual processes over many generations. Species acquire many of their unique characteristics through biological adaptation, which involves the selection of naturally occurring variations in populations. Biological adaptations include changes in structures, behaviors, or physiology that enhance survival and reproductive success in a particular environment.
