Animal Traits & Survival Unit
⭐ New - Lesson 2: Can you predict what an animal’s babies will look like?
- New supplies: 1 small paper cup & 1 penny or coin per student (NOT included in Packs)
📦 Archived - Lesson 5: Why do some family members look alike?
📝 Revised - Anchor Layer (Coming soon)
Why did Mystery Science make these curriculum updates?
Animal Traits & Survival Unit
- ⭐ New - Lesson 2: Can you predict what an animal’s babies will look like?
- 1-LS3-1. Make observations to construct an evidence-based account that young plants and animals are like, but not exactly like, their parents.
- Reasons for Development: Mystery Science partially covers 1-LS3-1 in Lesson 1 of this unit, which focuses on trait comparisons between animal parents & offspring. We developed this new lesson to expand our coverage of 1-LS3-1, with emphasis on offspring variation. Students explore the idea that although two siblings have the same parents, they can differ in many ways. There is a new hands-on activity where students draw a “Possible Puppy” based on the traits of two dog parents and a coin flip game. Through this activity, students discover that although offspring look very similar to their parents, they can also vary in many ways. An additional reason behind this particular development was to add content focused on parents & offspring so that we could retire the Read-Along at the end of this unit (see below for details on this).
- 📦 Archived - Lesson 5: Why do some family members look alike?
- 1-LS3-1. Make observations to construct an evidence-based account that young plants and animals are like, but not exactly like, their parents.
- Reasons for Archival: It’s been on the content team’s radar for a while that it would be best to retire this read-along lesson. Many teachers have written in with reservations about this particular story focusing on human traits and inheritance, which can create disconnects for students who may be adopted or part of non-nuclear families. With the development of new content, we now feel confident in our coverage of 1-LS3-1 and will retire this read-along. For those teachers who love this story, we will make this available as an optional extension.