BioEd Online

Teacher Background

In the unit entitled, “Living Things and Their Needs,” students learned the basic needs of plants and animals: air, water, food (source of nutrients and energy), and space or a place to be. This unit builds on those concepts by focusing on how basic needs are met for humans and other organisms.

All of an organism’s surroundings make up its environment. Environments include both nonliving factors, such as temperature and atmosphere, and living factors, such as other plants, animals and micro-organisms.

Resources, which are anything obtained from the environment to meet the needs or wants of an organism, also can be classified as having living or nonliving origins.

Objectives and Standards

Concepts

• All living things need air, water, food and a place to be (space).

• Organisms can survive only in environments in which their needs are met.

• A resource is anything that an organism gets from the living or nonliving environment.

• Objects can be classified as natural or designed.

Skills

• Recording

• Communicating

• Describing

Materials and Setup

Materials per Student

• Crayons or markers

• Drawing paper (for the post-assessment)

• Student sheet

Setup

Have each student complete his or her own assessment. You may wish to seat students in groups to share materials.

Procedure and Extensions

1. Explain to students that they will be learning about resources—the things people and other living things need to survive, grow and reproduce—and to recognize the origins of resources and whether they are natural or designed.

2. Begin by asking students about the basic necessities of life: food, water, air and place to be. Ask, What do plants need to grow? Do animals need the same things as plants? What do people need? How are these needs met? (i.e., how do animals get these basic needs).

3. Provide each student with a student sheet. In each of the four boxes a natural or a designed basic need of people is featured. Students will draw a possible source of the example given. For example, the “Food” box contains an apple (natural). The student might draw an apple tree as the source for the apple. Ask leading questions like, Where does an apple come from?

4. Encourage students to share their work and display it in the classroom until the end of the unit. Upon completing the unit, have students revisit their drawings and ask them to create new drawings based on what they have learned.

Handouts and Downloads