Draw an Alien in its Natural Habitat
Grade level(s):Elementary School (K-5), Grade 3, Grade 4, Grade 5
Topic:What is a Living Thing?
Students know plants and animals have structures that serve different functions in growth, survival, and reproduction.
Before: See vocabulary words taught in previous lessons of this unit, "What is a Living Thing and How Does a Living Thing Respond to Its Environment?"
During: alien, habitat
What you need:
one copy for each student of "Draw an Alien in Its Natural Habitat" sheet (attachment), drawing paper, pencils, color pencils
Students draw independently
10 minute introduction and discussion
20 minutes to fill out worksheet
30 minutes to draw
This is an extension and assessment activity for the Unit, "What is a Living Thing, and How Does a Living Thing Respond to Changes in its Environment?"
A prerequisite to teaching this lesson is to teach the previous lessons in this unit.
UNIT: What is Life and How Does a Living Thing Respond to Its Environment?
1) What Do Living Things Have in Common?
2) Living or Non-living?
3) Introducing Cells
4) Introducing the Process of Investigation Science
5) Student Designed Investigations Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, - "A Living Thing Responds to Its Environment"
Part 1 - Observation
Part 2 - Testable Questions, Predictions, Materials, and Procedures
Part 3 - Collection Data and Drawing Conclusions
Students will be able to apply what they have learned about living things, structures of living things and how living things sense and respond to their environment by creating a habitat and an alien that could live in that habitat.
An alternative is for the teacher to provide a written description of a habitat and have the students draw or do a written description of an alien that could live in that habitat.
copy one copy for each student of "Draw an Alien in Its Natural Habitat" sheet (attachment)
Lesson Implementation / Outline
Write on board: Alien - a living thing that lives in a habitat that is not on Earth. Share the definition of the word, alien, with the class.
Tell students that they are going to use what they have learned about living things on Earth to help them imagine what a living thing might be like that lived in a habitat that in not on Earth.
1. Review what all living things on Earth have in common (Use charts from "What is a Living Thing?" lesson.
2. Ask students what living things on Earth need to survive.
3. Ask students what structures living things have to help them get what they need from their environment to survive.
4. Tell students that at the end of this lesson they will be asked to draw an alien in its natural environment. They can imagine an environment on another planet or moon and then figure out what a living thing would need to survive there. Then they can think about what structures their alien would have that allowed it to survive in that environment. Have students work as a whole class to think of what would be part of an environment that could support life. Then create an alien with structures to survive in that environment.
5.Have students fill out the "Draw an Alien in Its Natural Habitat" sheet (attachment)
6. When they have finished the sheet, have them draw their alien in its natural habitat.
Assess worksheet and drawing.
Display drawings and worksheets. I display them at the end of the unit science fair.
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