During this unit students will gain experience in constructing explanations of how the geosphere, hydrosphere, and biosphere interact and how human impacts change how organisms interact with the environment.
Quick Links:
Lessons and Standards
5th Grade Summary:
Students learn the importance of wetland habitats and how they can help protect them. The content will focus on how animals use the wetlands, the importance of plant life in the wetlands, and the impacts that our wetlands face.
During the Exploration Day at Sweetwater Marsh, students are introduced to the wetland ecosystem and the plants and animals that live there. They investigate a real wetland and use scientific tools to identify animals and plants, and identify important uses of this habitat while building their belief that they can recognize and do science.
During the Make a Difference Day at the Living Lab, students learn how to help protect wetlands while investigating a wetland in their neighborhood. Students make a difference today by planting seedlings to zipline into the canyon and make a difference tomorrow by becoming engineers and designing machines to clean up future wetlands. Students also meet a science leader who shares their career pathway and challenges and obstacles they have faced along the way to becoming a science leader. Collectively, these experiences build students’ belief that science is important and relevant, and that they can make a difference in the world.
Students love becoming engineers, exploring the wetlands, using scientific tools, getting to know science leaders, and making a difference in the world!
NGSS Alignment:
Performance Expectation 5-ESS3-1: Obtain and combine information about ways individual communities use science ideas to protect the Earth’s resources and environment.
DCI ESS2.A Earth Materials and Systems: There are many different kinds of living things in any area, and they exist in different places on land and in water.
DCI ETS1.B Developing Possible Solutions: 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
Crosscutting Concepts
Systems and System Models
Schedules
Additional Resources
- Wetland Information
- What is a wetland? (NOAA National Ocean Service)
- Coastal Wetlands (Monterey Bay Aquarium)
- San Diego Bay National Wildlife Refuge (U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service)
- Info on field trip location (Sweetwater Marsh unit)
- Optional Pre or Post-supplemental Program
- Request volunteers to conduct their Youth Ocean Climate Science Education Program for free! https://staycool4grandkids.org/ocean-climate-science/
- Letters to a Pre-Scientist: https://prescientist.org/for-teachers/
- Science Careers
- Skype a Scientist
- Black in Science: Organization that supports and amplifies Black voices in the field of Marine Sciences.