In the last segment of this part of the lesson, the class will be shown the habitat box for the purpose of providing direct corroboration of their theories. The second part of the lesson utilizes another habitat box from the Field Museum. Students are allowed to examine the animal which is placed in a natural setting. They are asked to describe this setting and name it in terms of the earth's biomes. Then the class begins to construct a natural history using the techniques shown above.
Information is listed on the board as it is submitted by the students.
At the end of this segment of the lesson students should have identified a habitat with possible alternatives, food, locomotion, characteristics, i.e. aggressive or passive, birthrate, adaptability. No ideas are wrong, all are included in the list . For the concluding part of the lesson, the class will participate in a game which will also allow the instructor to evaluate student comprehension. Students will be able to immediately reinforce or correct their judgments at this time. This lesson ideally provides the student with the opportunity to develop his reasoning skills while learning more about the life histories of animals which may not be very familiar to him.