RATIONALE:

This unit entitled Ocean Animals is designed for 4th grade. The unit will
integrate many academic disciplines while teaching students about ocean animals with
specifics such as the attributes of mammals and whales specifically, the attributes of
non mammals and sharks specifically, food chains, food webs and oil spills and the
effects that it on the ocean.
Students will do a variety of activities to enhance their learning. First the
students will explore the attributes of mammals and focus on whales and learn about
how blubber keeps mammals warm. The students will also explore the attributes of non
mammals and focus on sharks and explore why the shark is considered a fish and not a
mammal. Students will explore food chains in the ocean by creating a diorama to show
an ocean food chain. Students will also explore food webs by creating a food web to
show the feeding relationships among organisms in the Galapagos waters. The
students will also explore ocean oil spills and discover how to resolve oil spills and
protect our oceans.
According to the Pennsylvania Department of Education Standards: 3.1.4.C2,
4.1.4.D and 3.1.4.C1, students will be able to describe plant and animal adaptations that
are important to survival, explain how specific adaptations can help organisms survive
in their environment. Identify different characteristics of plants and animals that help
some populations survive and reproduce in greater numbers.
According to the Pennsylvania Department of Education Standards: 3.1.4.B5 and
3.1.4.A1, students will be able to identify observable patterns in the physical
characteristics of plants or groups of animals and classify plants and animals according
to the physical characteristics that they share.
According to the Pennsylvania Department of Education Standards: 3.1.4.A2,
3.1.3.A2, students will be able to describe the different resources that plants and
animals need to live and describe the basic needs of living things and their dependence
on light, food, air, water, and shelter.
According to the Pennsylvania Department of Education Standards: 3.1.3.A2,
3.1.5.A2 and 3.2.5.B2, students will be able to describe the basic needs of living things
and their dependence on light, food, air, water, and shelter, describe how life on earth
depends on energy from the sun and examine how energy can be transferred from one
form to another.
According to the Pennsylvania Department of Education Standards: 4.5.4.C and
4.1.4.E, students will be able to describe how human activities affect the environment
and explain that ecosystems change over time due to natural and/ or human influences.

When the unit is complete, the students will be able to describe characteristics of
mammals, to describe the purposes of blubber, to describe and classify characteristics

of non-mammals, specifically fish, to create their own food chain and know the
vocabulary associated with it, to describe and show how food webs demonstrate how
organisms depend on each other for energy and nutrients, and explain how to resolve
oil spills and how to better take care of our oceans. This unit contains important
information for the students to understand another habitat, know about the animals that
live in that habitat, to understand how the animals are dependent on one another and
how to better take care of our oceans which will also take care of the animals that live
there.