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Title - Bird Adaptations
By - Keyra Kilbarger
Primary Subject - Science
Grade Level - 5th grade

Goals/Objectives - Students will understand and apply the concept of adaptation and its role in survival.

Specific Lesson Objectives -

1. Students will understand and apply what adaptation is
2. Students will create a bird of their own and explain the bird’s adaptations
a. Listen as students give ways birds have adapted.
b. Observe students as they create their own birds and listen as they explain the bird’s adaptations.

Academic Expectations:
2.6 - Students understand how living and nonliving things change over time and the factors that influence the changes.

Kentucky Core Content for Assessment:
SC-05-3.5.1 - Students will describe cause and effect relationships between enhanced survival/reproductive success and particular biological adaptations (e.g., changes in structures, behaviors, and/or physiology) to generalize about the diversity of species.

Kentucky Program of Studies:
S-5-SI-3 - Students will use evidence (e.g., classifications), logic, and scientific knowledge to develop scientific explanations.

This lesson is a continuation of an animal unit. It can be used to introduce students to animal adaptations.

Overhead projector
Overhead transparency of bird adaptations
Dry-erase or chalkboard with appropriate markers or chalk
Pictures of different types of birds
Handout of bird adaptations based on overhead transparency
Blank paper
Crayons, markers, or colored pencils

Set/ Launch:
Ask Students to come to the board and write one thing they have learned about animals so far. Call on one student to come to the board to write his sentence. Once he is finished have him pass the marker to a girl student. Continue to do this until all students have written one sentence on the board. After all students have had the opportunity to write, ask students, "What are some common words we see? Students should have written answers such as "animals have different traits", animals live in different areas", and "animals have different colors." (These answers are just a few examples.) Point out to students the word different. Then introduce them to the lesson.

Instruct/Investigate:

• Review the agenda for the lesson. First we will talk about a few animal adaptations together, then you and a partner will work on filling in the table together based on inferences you can make about the bird pictures. Finally you will design your own birds.
  
• Place the transparency on the overhead and review a couple of traits from each category (beaks, feet, legs, wings, and color). Call on students to help get the class started on their worksheet. Say to the class, "You will have approximately five minutes to work on the worksheet."
  
• Once the five minutes is up, get the students attention.
  
• Tell the students, "You will now pretend you are on a great expedition. You have just seen a very unusual bird, one you believe no one has ever seen before. Unfortunately you forgot your camera. But you did happen to bring paper and pencil. Your job as explorers/scientists is to draw this bird as documentation that you were the first to discover it. When you draw your bird, you will need to make sure to label all the parts of your bird and tell what the purpose of the beak, feet, legs, wings, etc. You also need to describe the habitat where you discovered the bird and give it a name, because all discoverers are given the privilege of naming their discovery." (Children may not know that the person who discovers something is the one who gets to name it.)
  
• Before students begin to create their bird let them know they need to plan the adaptations they will use. Once they feel they have planned they are now able to draw on their white paper. Tell students they will have between 10-15 minutes to create their bird and they will have to present the bird to the rest of the class.
  
  Summary/Closure:
  Have students share their birds with the rest of the class by sitting on the "author’s chair". As students present, prompt students about why they chose the particular adaptations they did.
  Wrap up by stating, "If you have not finished your bird, you may take it home to finish it and present it tomorrow."

There are a total of eight children with special needs. This lesson may need to be modified by extending the amount of information the student needs to include in the drawing, giving more prompts, and paraphrasing the directions given.

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