When beginning a science unit, I like to introduce the new topics through an interesting video or experience called the “Anchoring Phenomena Event”. It gets the students excited about what they are about to learn. They begin generating questions and making observations about what they are seeing. For this unit, we are studying inherited and environmental traits, adaptations, and environmental changes.

The Anchoring Phenomena Event

Driving Question

How can an animal adapt to a new environment?

The Mission

​A Broadway producer is looking for a new play to bring to the stage. The producer wants the play to be based on an animal family’s struggles to adapt in order to survive in a new environment because their old environment was destroyed by humans.

The Action

​Write and perform a play about an animal family’s struggle to survive in a new environment. The play should focus on one type of animal and its family, with at least five of its inherited and environmental traits identified. The play should open with the way the animal’s old habitat was destroyed by humans. A description of the old and new habitats should be included. The play should focus around how the animal family will respond to the new environment.

The students have been hard at work creating scripts, scenes, and costumes for their projects. We will be ending our unit with each group’s performance on Tuesday!