5th Grade Science Updates

Science:

Unit 1: Ecosystem Restoration

A portion of the Costa Rican rain forest ecosystem is failing. Many years ago, its trees were cut down, and the land was dedicated to cattle grazing. Since then, the cattle have left, and trees were replanted on the land. However, the organisms in this area of the rain forest—jaguars, sloths, and cecropia trees—don’t appear to be numerous or healthy. Why?

In this unit, students take on the role of ecologists to investigate this question and figure out what can be done to return the ecosystem to its original healthy state. As ecologists working with Natural Resources Rescue, an organization dedicated to protecting Earth’s fragile ecosystems, students work to explain the anchor phenomenon: that jaguars, sloths, and cecropia trees in a reforested section of a Costa Rican rain forest are not growing and thriving. In order to understand what’s causing the problem, students explore what it means to grow and how living things get the matter and energy they need to grow.

Students investigate animals, plants, and decomposers in three successive chapters. First, they investigate why the jaguars and sloths in the failing rain forest ecosystem aren’t growing and thriving. Students read texts and use a digital Simulation to investigate what happens at the molecular level as these animals eat other animals and plants in order to add new matter to their bodies. After investigating the animals, students conclude that there are not enough sloths for the jaguars to eat; and there are not enough cecropia trees for the sloths to eat. Students go on to explore why the cecropia trees in the failing rain forest ecosystem aren’t growing. Observing a terrarium they’ve built, reading a new book, testing ideas in the Simulation, and engaging in a variety of hands-on activities, students learn the basics of photosynthesis—the process by which plants make their own food by using water molecules and carbon dioxide molecules from the environment and energy from the sun. Maybe the cecropia trees aren’t getting enough water or sun as they need. However, after comparing the amount of rainfall, carbon dioxide, and sunlight between the restoration area and a healthy part of the Costa Rican rain forest, students see no difference. Considering other possible explanatory factors, students try to find out whether there might be differences in the soil in which the cecropia trees are growing. Through an analysis of soil data, a hands-on investigation of soil samples, reading a new book, and testing more ideas in the Simulation, students figure out the clear link between decomposers, nutrients, and plant growth and come up with an explanation for the unhealthy restoration area.

Throughout the unit, students engage in oral and written scientific argumentation about the source of the problem in the failing ecosystem. They also have an opportunity to write and revise a Rain Forest Restoration Plan in which they explain, in their own words, why the ecosystem is failing and support their arguments by using evidence. By the end of the unit, students present their final restoration plans, including a recommended course of action to restore the failing rain forest ecosystem to its original condition.

Chapter 1: Why aren’t the jaguars and sloths growing and thriving?

Chapter 2: Why aren’t the cecropia trees growing and thriving? 

Chapter 3: Why aren’t the cecropia trees growing and thriving in the soil?