Gr. 5 Animals in Their Environment

General Topic:

How the environment affects animal during exercise

Specific observations, problems or questions:

  • Environment
    • Marine env. and movement between environments
    • movement in Aquatic environment vs air
  • Exercise
    • getting oxygen under water
    • flying vs. swimming
      • Parrots adaptation to flight
    • to get food and not become food (prey)
      • Scavenging as an alternative to hunting
  • Animals
    • Marine mammals
    • Climbers (great athletes) and (Mcdavid great athlete
    • Blue
    • Jellyfish (huge, high reproductive output)
    • Hyenas
    • Parrots
    • Cheetas (incredible athletes)

Question Development:

How does animals skills and structure allow them to exercise with different environmental factors (altitude, temperature, salinity, pollution) in nature.

Specific questions:

  • What makes a sheep climb better than other animals? – Adaptation to specific exercise
  • Do certain animals need certain temperatures to exercise ?
  • How does pollution affect the birds when they fly. – Pollution in the environment limit exercise?
  • How does Technology work and make machines, cruise liners, planes and robots and how does this relate to animals forms
  • what is the difference between difference oceans  that affects the species form
  • How many fish died from big fish or low water levels? (how low water levels affect ability to exercise and survive)
  • How does hot and cold air affect the exercise of the hyena. Temperature
  • How does altitude affect birds exercise (what different at altitude)
  • Why are cheetas so fast and how? What are the similarities across environments and why?

Ideas for Next Steps:

  • Investigate the Krogh Principle? What is it?
  • What environmental challenge are you specifically interested and based on the Krogh Principle what exercising animal(s) do you want to focus on in scenario? You could also reverse this process and base your environmental scenario on what you think your animal is particularly well suited for.
  • Gather background information to better understand how your animal exercises and the environmental challenge you’re interested in.
    • Search ideas:
      • “your animal” “your environmental condition” and “type of exercise”
      • Eg. Salmon Temperature Swimming or Bird Altitude Migration
      • Sources to consider: Canadian Geographic, CBC, National Geographic

OUR INQUIRY QUESTIONS:
Why is a Spider Monkey such a good climbers?  by Monkey Girl
Why are Mountain Goats and Sheep so good at climbing? by Nachos
Why are Cheetahs so fast? by Frank
How can Angler Fish survive in the Deep? by DKC
How do Octopus live in deep cold water? by Rider
How do Peregrine Falcons dive so fast? by Hockey Legend
How are brown bears so fast even if they are huge? by Tornado
Why are Hyenas such good scavengers? by Hockey Player
Why can emperor penguins swim so fast?  by Penguin
Why are Basilisk Lizards able to run on water? by Polar

Earth Worm Inquiry – With ASPIRE Scientist Matthew Gilbert

Earth Worm Inquiry – With ASPIRE Scientist Matthew Gilbert

Our ASPIRE Scientist, Matthew Gilbert visited RL Angus the week before Spring Break.  He led us on an exploration in the amazing adaptations of the earthworm.  We first came up with questions such as “How can earthworms burrow so well?” and “Why don’t earthworms explode when they dig?”

With a guided tour of the earthworm’s external anatomy we were able to answer these questions. We already knew that earthworms need a moist environment to breathe through their outer skin. We then used this knowledge to design an experiment using live red wiggler compost worms to discover if worms are able to sense and choose between moist and dry environments.  The results of the experiment definitively revealed that worms have a very strong preference for moist environments.

The results of the experiment definitively revealed that worms have a very strong preference for moist environments.

Earthworm Dissection

Finally, our group studied earthworms’ internal anatomy.  Matthew helped by guiding us through the dissection process.