Category: Kindergarten Science

Interdependent Relationships: Plants, Animals, and Their Environment

Unit description: Students explore what plants and animals need to live, grow and thrive. They learn how plants and animals depend on each other, and how humans can impact the environment they live in. 

Download the complete Kindergarten Science Unit 3 framework to customize for your own planning.

Essential Questions and Big Ideas

What do plants and animals need to survive?

All animals need food, air, and water in order to live, grow, and thrive. Animals obtain food from plants or from other animals. Plants need water, air, and light to live, grow, and thrive. (K-LS1-1)

How do plants, animals and humans change the environment they live in?

• • Plants and animals can change their environment.(K-ESS2-2)
  • Living things need water, air, and resources from the land, and they live in places that have the things they need. Humans use natural resources for everything they do. (K-ESS3-1)

How can we (humans) reduce the impact we have on living things and the environment?

• • Things that people do to live comfortably can affect the world around them. But they can make choices that reduce their impacts on the land, water, air, and other living things.  (secondary to K-ESS2-2),(K-ESS3-3)
  • Designs can be conveyed through sketches, drawings, or physical models. These representations are useful in communicating ideas for a problem’s solutions to other people. (secondary to K-ESS3-3)

Prerequisite Skills/Science & Engineering Practices: 

Use observations to describe patterns,  use evidence to support an argument, use models to show a relationship, communicate ideas for solutions to a problem.

Part 1: Forces (pushes & pulls) | Part II: Matter & Interactions

Suggested Timeframe: Winter (Jan-March)

Unit description: Students explore how pushes and pulls can cause objects to move, speed up, slow down, or change direction. Students learn the properties of solids and liquids, and how temperature can change this.

Standards

• Forces (pushes & pulls)/Matter & Interactions

Essential Questions and Big Ideas

Part I: Forces (pushes & pulls)

• What makes an object move?
  • A push or a pull may cause stationary objects to move, and a stronger push or pull in the same or opposite direction makes an object in motion speed up or slow down more quickly. (secondary to K-PS2-1)
  • Pushes and pulls can have different strengths and directions. (KPS2-1),(K-PS2-2)
  • Pushing or pulling on an object can change the speed or direction of its motion and can start or stop it. (K-PS2-1),(K-PS2-2)
• How can we change the motion of an object?
  • When objects touch or collide, they push on one another and can change motion. (K-PS2-1)
  • A situation that people want to change or create can be approached as a problem to be solved through engineering. Such problems may have many acceptable solutions. (secondary to KPS2-2)

Part II: Matter & Interactions

• What makes something a solid or a liquid?
  • Different kinds of matter exist and many of them can be either solid or liquid, depending on temperature. Matter can be described and classified by its observable properties. (K-PS1-1)

Prerequisite Skills/Science & Engineering Practices

• Use observations to describe patterns, use evidence to support an argument, use models to show a relationship, communicate ideas for solutions to a problem

Download the complete Kindergarten Science Unit 2 framework to customize for your own planning.

Weather & Climate

Students study local weather conditions to describe patterns. They explore weather forecasting to learn of its importance in helping us to be prepared for severe weather. Students learn how sunlight impacts the Earth, and ways we can protect ourselves from too much sun.

Standards

• K-ESS2-1. Use and share observations of local weather conditions to describe patterns over time.
• K-ESS3-2. Ask questions to obtain information about the purpose of weather forecasting to prepare for, and respond to, severe weather.
• K-PS3-1. Make observations to determine the effect of sunlight on Earth’s surface.
• K-PS3-2. Use tools and materials to design and build a structure that will reduce the warming effect of sunlight on an area.* [Clarification Statement: Examples of structures could include umbrellas, canopies, and tents that minimize the warming effect of the sun.]

Essential Questions and Big Ideas of the Unit

• How do we describe the different types of weather?
  • Weather is the combination of sunlight, wind, snow or rain, and temperature in a particular region at a particular time. People measure these conditions to describe and record the weather and to notice patterns over time. (K-ESS2-1)
• Why is it important to know the weather forecast?
  • Some kinds of severe weather are more likely than others in a given region. Weather scientists forecast severe weather so that the communities can prepare for and respond to these events. (K-ESS3-2)
• Why is the sun important to us?
  • Sunlight warms Earth’s surface. (K-PS3-1),(K-PS3-2)
• How can we protect ourselves from too much sun?
  • Asking questions, making observations, and gathering information are helpful in thinking about problems. (secondary to K-ESS3-2)

Download the complete Kindergarten Science Unit 1 framework to customize for your own planning.