Science and Technology in the Classroom

Hello Grade 4's!!!!!

Please let your parents know that the following curriculum expectation for science and technology related to habitats includes the following for students to know:

- be able to demonstrate an understanding of the concepts of habitat and community and identify the factors that could affect habitats and communities of plants and animals.

I hope everyone is working towards understanding different habitats of animals that live in Canada and throughout the world, and how the animals all live and survive in their community. In marshlands there are many types of animals that live in this environment. These include muskrats, beavers, ducks, geese and snakes among many others. The food chain consists of specific animals laying eggs and in turn the snake would eat these eggs to survive. This is called the circle of life. At the top of the food chain we have man and the food chain works down by humans eating meat which consists of many different kinds of animals. On your journey, you will discover the importance of how different animals depend upon one another and how they are all connected! Please check out this web site that is an interactive game relating to habitats and food webs in ponds and woodlands:

http://pbskids.org/eekoworld/index_flash.html.

Well, now that you have had some fun learning about animals, their habitats and food webs, let us move on to the following. Animals live everywhere on our earth- in every kind of terrain and every kind of climate. An animal's living place is called its habitat. The majority of animals are only adapted to live in one or two habitats. A rattlesnake could not live for very long in the arctic and a polar bear would not live long in Africa. Some animals migrate in the spring and then in the fall to find warmer habitats with food that will sustain them. Please check out the following site that will allow you to match animals to their habitat:

http://www.uen.org/utahlink/activities/view_activity.cgi?

Now that we have a better understanding of what habitat means and how animals live within their communities and rely on one another, we will now continue with food webs. We need to know about animals that are active in the daytime and at night. We have to understand that animals depend on each other for energy. We will also discover sources of energy needed for the animals to survive in their daily life. The following site will also help us list sources of food and shelter for animals. Have fun checking out this site and learning about different animals, their habitats and their sources of food and shelter that are needed for them to survive.

http://www.gould.edu.au/foodwebs/

We have covered a great deal of information with relation to habitats and foodwebs. Please enjoy your learning experience and let me know if the following sites helped you along with your discovery...................

Until next time!

Mrs Lolua