Sponges

Students explore unique sponge adaptations through short Shape of Life videos and student-centered activities.

There are three separate lessons here based upon questions.

• A list of questions about the characteristics of sponges to use after viewing the video Sponges: Origins.
• A Shape of Life: Sponges worksheet. Students make sketches and write short answers to questions about the amazing world of sponges. This was created by Rachel Miller from Science from Scratch.
• A Powerpoint with questions to use while watching the video Sponges: Origins.

In this lesson students discuss the definition of an animal. What characteristics do all animals have in common? To introduce the subject the teacher gives a brief discussion of the

five kingdoms (see reference below). What evidence is needed to decide that an organism is an animal? Students watch the video Sponges: Origins and reconsider the definition of an animal.

In this lesson students make a guess as to what was the first animal. The class watches the Sponge video from the shapeoflife.org and writes down what evidence they saw that sponges were the first animals. Then the class discusses what evidence they need to figure out what might have been the first animal. They watch the scientist video “Mitchell Sogin, Evolutionary Biologist: Proof of the First Animal” and write down the evidence that is presented for the sponge being the first animal.