They analyze a film about wildlife to determine ways that animals depend on water. They design an aluminum insect to float on water. In pairs, students conduct library research using references about an animal living in an aquatic ecosystem and write a descriptive paragraph about this animal. Finally, they observe animals living in moist areas on the school grounds. Students listen to the story, Secret Place, by Eve Bunting, and identify ways the people in the story showed respect for the wildlife they observed.
Students design an aquatic food chain and food web.
They attend a field trip to an aquatic ecosystem and participate in sense awareness activities and investigations concerning interrelationships and the characteristics of the living things they observe. Students describe their personal perceptions of aquatic ecosystems in their journals. They also pick up and classify litter. Students examine illustrations on a poster to discover how California Indians used water. They investigate ways orange juice is currently distributed and examine ways early American Indians made their drinks.