Lesson Plans

Lesson Plan

In this lesson students make a guess as to what was the first animal. The class watches the Sponge video from the shapeoflife.org and writes down what evidence they saw that sponges were the first animals. Then the class discusses what evidence they need to figure out what might have been the first animal. They watch the scientist video “Mitchell Sogin, Evolutionary Biologist: Proof of the First Animal” and write down the evidence that is presented for the sponge being the first animal.

Lesson Plan

A list of questions about the characteristics of Molluscs to use after viewing the video Molluscs: the Survival Game.

Lesson Plan

There are three separate lessons here based upon questions.A list of questions about the characteristics of marine arthropods to use after viewing the video Marine Arthropods: A Successful Design.A Shape of Life Marine Arthropods: A Successful Design worksheet. Students make sketches and write short answers to questions about the amazing world of marine arthropods. This was created by Rachel Miller from Science from Scratch.A Powerpoint with questions to use while watching the video Marine Arthropods: A Successful Design.

Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will be introduced to the concept of taxonomy, and categorization of organisms based on Carl Linnaeus’s system of classification.

Lesson Plan

Students learn about the microscopic world of tiny plankton drifters. They watch videos that simulate looking at live invertebrate larvae under a microscope.

Lesson Plan

Bioluminescence is a spectacular living light show common in the marine environment and especially useful in the deep sea. It provides a way for deep sea animals to communicate and survive in the darkest part of the ocean.Please explore this rich array of bioluminescence resources our colleague, Rick Reynolds, created for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). LESSON PLANS

Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will watch a short film about the Cambrian Explosion and the extraordinary fossils of the Burgess Shale. Students will address preconceptions and misconceptions about early Cambrian life, and complete a timeline activity that will enable them to better appreciate just how recently—relatively speaking—multicellular life evolved on Earth.

Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will address misconceptions about phylogenetic trees before completing a modeling activity to give them a better understanding of how trees are used to model evolutionary relationships.