Learn the distinguishing features of each phyla.
Grade Level: 4 - 8
Minutes: 15
Subject: Animal Classification
Activity Type: Watch Shape of Life videos and PLAY CARDS!
Carbonated Communities
This series of two lessons uses cutting-edge scientific research on the effects of climate change on communities in the intertidal. Through a combination of a dynamic presentation and several videos, students are introduced to climate change’s effects on the ocean (ocean acidification and temperature increase) and how ocean organisms are affected. Students read and interpret graphs and construct a scientific explanation based on data from this research.
This collection consists of six lesson plans designed to help students construct an explanation of the geologic time scale based on personal connections, science concepts that include Law of Superposition and index fossils and nature of science ideas. The lessons highlight a diversity of scientists and geologic sites that complement Shape of Life videos.
A variety of modalities are engaged that encourage shared exploration with peers. Students go outside and observe the schoolyard, watch videos, create a “geologic site in a cup,” utilize technology for geologic time scale interpretations, work in small groups and participate in whole class discussions throughout the lessons.
Your students will ROCK these lessons!
Bones, Brawn & Brains
RayTroll’s renditions of everything from salmon to marine mammals to creatures only found in the fossil record have become iconic in fishing, scientific, and environmental activism communities around the world. He seeks inspiration from extensive field work in marine science, paleontology, geology, ecology, and evolutionary biology. His paintings and mixed-media drawings are in the collections of the Miami Museum of Science, the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, Alaska Airlines, the Anchorage Museum, the Alaska State Museum, and the Ketchikan Museum.
The history of the animals whose descendants would be the first to breathe air and live on land begins over half-a-billion years ago, when the earliest members of a group called arthropods branched off from their ancestral roots of primitive, bilateral animals. These creatures quickly became powerful hunters and scavengers and established patterns of adaptability and dominance that continue into the present.
Our Tree of Life diagram shows how all living things are related.
New Resources tell a magnificent story from 500 million years ago!The story of the Cambrian Explosion of life is one of the greatest moments in science. Learn more about this one-of-a-kind story with our comprehensive view into the evolution of life in our world. You can find a new Shape of Life chapter "The Cambrian Explosion: A Big Bang in the Evolution of Animals".
Talk about great design!
Marine Arthropods quickly became powerful hunters and scavengers, and established patterns of adaptability and dominance that continue into the present.
Even if you accept the notion that nature has no obligation to make sense, echinoderms are enigmas that evolved like no other animals on earth. Their curtain went up over half-a-billion years ago, along with those of all the other basic blueprints for building an animal, but they tell an entirely different evolutionary story.