Lesson Plan

Students explore the diversity and adaptations of marine arthropods.

Lesson Plan

A list of questions about the characteristics of marine arthropods to use after viewing the video Marine Arthropods: A Successful Design.

Lesson Plan

Students explore the extraordinary adaptions and diversity of terrestrial arthropods through short Shape of Life videos and student-centered activities in the 5E Instructional Model.

Lesson Plan

This lesson consists of a cross disciplinary activity incorporating aspects of wave characteristics from Physics, movement traits from Biology, and evaluating locomotion design from Engineering. Students can be introduced to the idea by showing the video Arthropod Locomotion: Engineering from the shapeoflife.org or other videos of animals that exhibit wave-like characteristics during motion. Class discussion can begin by analyzing the necessity to move efficiently and how moving in a wave-like manner could be beneficial.

Lesson Plan

Students explore how the adaptable arthropod body allowed them to invade both land and air. First, students watch the video Terrestrial Arthropods: The Conquerors and take notes. After watching the video, students answer questions. 

Lesson Plan

A list of questions about the characteristics of terrestrial arthropods to use after viewing the video Terrestrial arthropods: The Conquerors.

Lesson Plan

Lab dissection of a squid, a member of Class Cephalopoda (along with the octopus and nautilus). Supported by several Shape of Life segments, students interpret squid adaptations as a radical case of divergent evolution: A line of ancestral snails abandoned the life of sluggish grazing and foraging in favor of a new niche as speedy open water predators.

Lesson Plan

Lab dissection of a representative of Class Bivalvia. Supported by several Shape of Life segments, students interpret bivalve adaptations as a radical case of divergent evolution: A simple ancestral snail with a mobile lifestyle, single dome-shaped shell, bilateral symmetry, and a head (“cephalization”) transformed into a headless, double-shelled, sedentary filter-feeder whose bilateral form is obscure.

Lesson Plan

A brief hands-on investigation of Class Gastropoda (snails and slugs), followed by a critical thinking exercise centered on segments of the Shape of Life. Students first examine the bodies and behavior of live slugs or snails, then use water balloons to model their unique style of locomotion, and finally tackle a series of analytical questions designed to cultivate a grasp of divergent evolution: the branching of a single ancestral form into multiple new forms for diverse new functions, niches, and habitats.

Lesson Plan

Through a sequence of “explore-before-explain” laboratory investigations, coupled with segments from the Shape of Life videos, students study molluscs in the present and their long  evolutionary history. The module includes those listed below, which can also stand alone.