KUTZTOWN UNIVERSITY

ELEMENTARY EDUCATION DEPARTMENT

LESSON PLAN FORMAT

Teacher Candidate:
Cooperating Teacher:
Group Size:

21

Subject or Topic:

Victoria DeLuca
N/A

Date:

October 7, 2014

Coop. Initials

Allotted Time 40 Minutes Grade Level 3rd Grade

Science: Sight and Sound-Lesson 2

Section

010

STANDARD:
Science Inquiry 3.1.3.C4:
Distinguish between scientific fact and opinion.
Ask questions about objects, organisms, and events.
Understand that all scientific investigations involve asking and answering questions and
comparing the answer with what is already known.
Plan and conduct a simple investigation and understand that different questions require
different kinds of investigations.
Use simple equipment (tools and other technologies) to gather data and understand that
this allows scientists to collect more information than relying only on their senses to
gather information.
Use data/evidence to construct explanations and understand that scientists develop
explanations based on their evidence and compare them with their current scientific
knowledge.
Communicate procedures and explanations giving priority to evidence and
understanding that scientists make their results public, describe their investigations so
they can be reproduced, and review and ask questions about the work of other scientists.
Evolution 3.1.5.C2
Give examples of how inherited characteristics (e.g., shape of beak, length of neck,
location of eyes, shape of teeth) may change over time as adaptations to changes in the
environment that enable organisms to survive.
I. Performance Objectives (Learning Outcomes):
A. 3rd grade students will be able to
1. Investigate, question, observe, interact, and make a conclusion based
on information gained by exploring the senses, sight and hearing,
through a science based inquiry activity and recording data into their
science journal.

2. Communicate and debate information of animals and their extreme

sense of sight or hearing by holding a mock court case in which they
support their investigations.
II. Instructional Materials
A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.
G.
H.
I.
J.
K.
L.
M.
N.
O.
P.
Q.
R.
S.
T.
U.
V.
W.

The book Eye to Eye: How Animals See the World by Steve Jenkins
Science journals/ Inquiry handout
Power Point of animal images
Writing utensils
Two large plastic cups
Two small plastic cups
A short string (approximately 5 feet long)
A long string (approximately 10 feet long)
Stiff card
Rubber band
Plastic wrap
Tape
Modeling clay
Cardboard tube
Flashlight
Old cameras
Thick bottom glasses
Old pair of eyeglasses
Magnify glass
Paper
Water
Red and green cellophane
trays

III. Subject Matter/Content

A. Prerequisite skills
1. A general knowledge of animals
B. Key Vocabulary
1. Vibration- continuous and rapid movement
2. Ear canal- The narrow, tube-like passage through which sound
enters the ear. Also called external auditory canal.
C. Big Idea
1. Certain animals use their sense of sight, hearing, or lack thereof to
their advantage in many different ways.
D. Additional content
1. The six basic process skills: observation, communication,
classification, measurement, inference, and prediction.

IV. Implementation
A. Introduction
1. Start the lesson by getting the students attention by making a loud
sound off to the back corner of the room. This can be done by hitting
to metal pot lids together.
2. Explain to the students that the reason you did this was to have them
hear the loudness of the sound and turn to look for the source of this
sound.
3. Next, introduce a game called Whats that Sound? and pass out the
paper handouts to play the game. (See document attached)
4. The students will listen to four different sounds and fill out the
handout.
B. Development
1. Next, the teacher will explain that while this was a fun game we can
learn a lot from it, too. Ask the student to think back on their
reactions, observations, and the methods they used to detect the
source of the sound. Remind them to think back to the first sound
that you made that gained their attention.
2. Explain that we used our ears to hear the sound and to detect which
direction it came from. Then we used our eyes to see the source. Our
brains processed the information to cause use to assess which
reaction would be appropriate.
3. If the sound startled us, as did the first loud unexpected sound I
made did, then we would be trying to detect if we were in danger or
not. This is what animals do, too.
4. Bring up the Neuroscience for Kids website that was briefly looked
at in the closure of lesson one.
5. Explain that the animals that we will be focusing on today have
extreme sight or hearing while others will have no sight or no sense
of hearing. Some might even share multiple traits and we could see
some of these animals more than once.
6. Use the Power Point to look at enlarged images these animals. Point
to certain physical characteristics while you talk about each animal.
For example, notice how large the eyes are of nocturnal animals.
7. First lets look at the animal eye sight. These animals that we are
focusing on are birds (eagles, owls, falcon, buzzards, falcon, hawk,
penguins, and pigeon), marine life (blind cave fish, sharks, giant
squid, octopus, jellyfish, scallop, seahorse, crayfish, shrimp and
crab), insects/arthropods (butterfly, fly, blind wolf spider, and
spider), reptiles (snakes, chameleons, and blind salamander), and
mammals (cats, dogs, foxes, grazing animals-horses, gazelles, and
zebras.
8. Encourage students to reference their wordbooks from the day
before. They can also add any other new word to the book that might
be helpful.

9. Details of these animals that do not pertain solely to their sight

should be left out so that the lesson does not lose its focus.
10. The teacher will briefly explain how each of these animals uses this
sense.
11. The teacher should then read the book Eye to Eye: How Animals See
the World by Steve Jenkins.
12. While reading the book make sure to stop and ask students to look at
the differences in the positions in the eyes and which animals tend to
have their eyes in this particular position. Ask them to think why this
might be helpful for the animal. Ask how the shape or size of the
animals eyes might make a difference. This information can be
found throughout the text.
13. Organize these animals into groups using two semantic webs as main
point: excellent eye sight and little or no eye sight.
14. Under the category of excellent sight, certain characteristics such as
color vision, eye position, and eye size should be covered.
15. Under the topic of no eye sight, characteristics should be covered
such as animals with no eyes, bind animals, or partially blind
animals.
16. Finish the semantic web with the blind animal section so to set up a
good segue into the portion of the lesson about animals with extreme
hearing.
17. Pose the question how might life be if we could not see. What could
these animals use in place of sight?
18. This brings us to the sense of hearing. These animals use their
extremely good hearing or lack of hearing to their advantage.
19. Some animals that do not have ears and/or cannot hear are crickets,
bees, grasshoppers, and snakes. Turtle can hear only a little sound.
These animals generally rely on vibrations.
20. Some animals with extreme hearing are moths, bats, owls, pigeons,
elephants, dolphins, cats, dogs, rats, mice, horses.
21. The teacher should provide information on each animals range of
hearing. An example would be cats and dogs both have excellent
hearing, but cats have greater hearing than dogs. This information
should also be related back to what that would sound like to human
ears. For example we can hear at 20 feet away what dogs can hear at
80 feet away.
22. The teacher can demonstrate this by playing sounds at different
volumes.
23. Show the students a number of pictures of animals with extreme
hearing. Ask them to observe their ears and ask them what each of
them has in common. They should state that they all have large ears.
24. Explain that the larger the ear is the more sound it catches and
directs to the inner ear. This is called the ear canal.
25. The teacher should exclaim, What do you think would be most
helpful to an animal; super sight or super hearing? Lets find out!

26. The teacher will inform the students that they are going to do a
science experiment that will allow them to experience some of the
extreme senses of the animals we just learned about.
27. Divide the class is into four groups. Two groups will experiment
with extreme sight and the other two groups will experiment with
extreme hearing.
28. Pass out inquiry handout for science journal. (See document
attached)
29. Place a tray of materials at each group. Two of these trays will have
materials to create seeing devises and the other two will have
materials to create hearing devises.
30. Each group will work together to create a devise that will enhance
their assigned sense.
31. Before the groups begin they need to each think of a focus question
and record it in their journals.
32. The groups that are investigating hearing will have two large plastic
cups, two small plastic cups, one 5 foot long string, and one 15 foot
long string. These will be used to make telephone cups. They will
also need a stiff card, a sheet of paper, a rubber band, plastic wrap,
tape, modeling clay, a cardboard tube, and a flashlight to a create
large ear with an ear canal. These materials will be used to create an
enlarged ear to catch sound better. With the ear they can use the
flashlight to observe the vibrations on the cellophane from sound
going through the cardboard tube.
33. The groups investigating sight will have old cameras to take apart,
cardboard tubes, thick bottom glasses, magnify glass, an old pair of
eyeglasses, paper, water, and red and green cellophane. The students
will test the items to see which made their sight better. They would
then use these items to create binoculars.
34. The students will investigate the provided materials and collaborate
with each other to complete the project. It is important that the
students record all data and conclusions on their inquiry sheets to put
into their science journals.
35. The teacher should ask that groups assign roles for each student.
Suggested roles would be a leader, a data recorders, and
constructors. This way the students can work in an organized fashion
without a bunch of little hands pushing and shoving each other to
complete a task.
36. After everyone has completed their project they will test out their
creations and see if it truly enhanced their assigned sense. The
results must be recorded.
37. The groups will share their finished project and argue why they
think the sense that they worked with would be most helpful to an
animal. The must support their theory how they came to this
conclusion.

38. This can be made into a fun debate by stating that the classroom has
turned into a courtroom and we have to defend our sense. There will
be two defending sides; one for each sense.
39. Using the information taught by the teacher, information from the
books that have been read thus far, and the project investigation, the
class will debate the senses and demonstrate their experiment.
C. Closure
1. End the court case by stating that both sides made valid arguments
for their senses, but each animal has the sense that they have because
it is what they need to survive. These are their adaptations to their
environment.
2. Tomorrow we are going to think about how these animals might use
their senses to survive.
3. Also, since today we learned about the sight and hearing abilities of
animals, tomorrow we will be moving our focus toward the sense of
touch.
D. Accommodations/Differentiation
1. For K.D., a 3rd grader with dyslexia, I would make sure that her role
in the group was not one of the data recorders or researchers because
I would not want her to become frustrated or embarrassed by having
to read or write in front of her peers.
E. Assessment/Evaluation Plan
1. Formative
a. The teacher will use the students group project journal entry and mock
court case as a formative assessment. A checklist will be used to record each
students demonstrated understanding of animal characteristics.
2. Summative
a. The summative assessment will be at the end of this unit.
V. Reflective Response
A. Report of Student Performance in Terms of Stated Objectives (Reflection on
student performance written after lesson is taught, includes remediation for
students who fail to meet acceptable level of achievement)

Remediation Plan

B. Personal Reflection (Questions written before lesson is taught. Reflective

answers to question recorded after lesson is taught)
1. Did playing Whats that sound seem to help the students think about the
act of hearing and how we use our hearing and sight to identify things
around us?

2. Were the students able to successfully navigate the materials during the
inquiry to create an object to amplify their hearing or sight?

3. Were the students able to demonstrate knowledge gained from the

inquiry project in their mock courtroom debate?

VI. Resources:
Ardley, N. (1992). The science Book of the Senses. Orlando: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,
Publishers.
Jenkins, S. (2014). Eye to Eye: how Animals See the World. Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt.