Exploring animal behavior: Do animals think and feel?

Unit title: Animal Behavior

Course title: Zoology

Important Concepts: Grade level: 10th, 11th & 12th The scientific study of animal behavior within the fields of Ethology and Evolutionary Biology. Stimulus / Response. Innate vs. Learned behavior. Evolution is driven by the finite supply of resources and natural selection. Tinbergens four questions for every Ethologist to ask. Time of year taught: January Length of unit: 1 week

Materials needed: Lab manuals, laminated cards for each person (red, green, yellow), large white boards for each Arizona Science Standards: group of four, 3 colored pens, highlighter. SCHS-S1C1-O2 For explorations: SCHS-S1C2-O1 Computers and color print outs scattered around the room at stations. These SCHS-S1C3-O1 informational stations will expose students to remarkable examples of animal behavior SCHS-S1C4-O4 and various experimental studies. SCHS-S2C1-O1 Why do greylag geese follow Konrad Lorenz like a mother? SCHS-S3C2-O3 Why do whooping cranes follow an airplane surrogate parent? SCHS-S4C4-O1 Why did young children mimic hitting a bobo doll in Banduras experiments? SCHS-S4C4-O6 How do animal trainers teach animals to do tricks? How do monkeys respond to a death in their family? Jane Goodalls work. Do animals sleep? For expansions: Beta Fish, crickets, mice, and humans.

Exploring animal behavior: Do animals think and feel?

Essential vocabulary
Fitness, stimulus, response, innate behavior, learned behavior, cognition, instinct, monogamous, promiscuous, courtship rituals, dominance hierarchies, altruism, mating territory, aggression.

Lesson

Overview

Students will -Demonstrate their note-taking skills.

Teacher will -Welcome students back from break.

Formative / Summative work Formative assessment: -Collect notes at the end of class, to evaluate students note-taking strategies. -Assign one vocabulary model (due Wed. with an opportunity to revise and resubmit Friday). -Red, yellow, green cards held up to communicate student understanding / misunderstanding.

Stage: Engagement -This will be the first day

Do animals think and have emotions? Materials: -Loose leaf, college-ruled paper. -Vocabulary models printed out (one for each student). -Laminated red/green/yellow cards.

back from winter break. Students will ponder how human behavior is similar and different from other animals. -The teacher will give a quick lesson on human cognitive development and have students take notes and assess their note-taking strategies. -Give students logic problems and personality tests to break up the lecture.

-Answer questions related -Begin to set expectations to cognitive stages of for the semester in terms development. of homework and classroom procedures. -Use red, yellow, green cards to communicate -Lay out major ideas and understanding / the unit objectives. misunderstanding. -Ask questions for -Take home critter think-pair-share contracts to get parent discussions. permission to work with live animals including mice -Explain /assign and insects. vocabulary models.

Exploring animal behavior: Do animals think and feel?

Lesson

Overview

Students will

Teacher will

Formative / Summative work -Formative assessment: Lab sheet- How do animals behave? (Students will finish up lab questions as homework.)

Stage: Exploration
What causation, development, evolutionary history and functions are behind animal behaviors? Materials: -Printed lab sheets. -Stations set up with colored print-outs or laptop computers queued to particular videos and multimedia.

Students will write a response to one of the following questions at each station. 1. Function: How does the behavior affect the animals chances of survival and reproduction? 2. Causation- What are the stimuli that elicit the response? 3. Development- What early experiences are necessary for the animal to display the behavior? 4. Evolutionary historyHow does the behavior compare with similar behavior in related species?

-Students will spend 4-5 minutes at nine different lab stations with information related to particular animal behaviors. -As they visit each station and record observations they will analyze behaviors in terms of fitness and evolution. -They will then document hypotheses for at least one of Tinbergens four questions at each station.

-Explain how to use document observations. -Monitor progress by walking to different stations and talking to students.

Exploring animal behavior: Do animals think and feel?

Lesson

Overview

Students will

Teacher will

Formative / Summative work Formative assessment: -Hoist red, yellow or green cards to communicate their understanding / misunderstanding. -Verbal responses to questions. -Cornell notes

Stage: Explanation -This class period will

How do scientists study behavior? Materials: -Document reader -Overhead projector (?) -Front whiteboard -Laminated cards from previous day.

involve direct instruction of scientific concepts using active learning strategies including questioning and think-pair-share discussion.

-Students will practice -The teacher will lead the new note-taking strategies class through a lesson on using lab notebooks and animal behavior. different colored pens. -Model note-taking -Explain how the strategies and outline how behaviors they examined students will transition to connect with scientific self-sufficient note taking. concepts in animal behavior. -Major concepts to be discussed include scientific research in Ethology, elements of behavior and patterns of behavior. -Through Socratic questioning, students will discuss how the examples from the previous day relate to the scientific categories of behavior.

Exploring animal behavior: Do animals think and feel?

Lesson

Overview

Students will -Students will examine aggression in beta fish, dominance hierarchies and mating preferences in crickets, resource allocation among mice, and learning in humans.

Teacher will -Set up the classroom into four quadrants and place various animals and materials in each for close examination. -Set ground rules and safety reminders for working with live animals. -Orient students to the lab by outlining the lab sheet and overall process.

Formative / Summative work Formative assessment: -Collect vocabulary sheets (post best ones to class website). -Lab sheet: Observing Animal Behavior. -Assign an article for students to read at home and ask students to highlight and take notes on the page. Formative Assessments -Notebook checks -Class participation

animals for clues of Do animals show signs various elements and of any cognitive or patterns of behavior: -Courtship emotional -Dominance hierarchies behaviors? -Sharing / selfishness Materials: -Aggression -Lab sheet -Beta fish (in separate fish -Learning bowls). -Crickets in a sparse aquarium. -Mice in a cage. -Puzzles.

Stage: Elaboration Students will examine live

Stage: Evaluation
Do animals communicate, feel emotions, experience close relationships, and learn new things? Materials: -Whiteboards -Printed text -Printed worksheet for Socratic seminar and short answer response.

-The class period will involve groups presenting their lab results on a whiteboard, followed by a 30 minute Socratic seminar on animal behavior. We will return to our original question: Do animals think and have emotion?

-Students will break into their lab groups and use large whiteboards to summarize their most interesting experimental findings from the week. -Students will transition to a Socratic seminar by getting into an inner circle, outer circle formation. -They will turn in the weekly packet.

-Walk around and help students communicate their results into images and words onto the whiteboards.

Turn in weekly packet: -One vocabulary model -Establish ground rules for -Lab sheet: How do engaging in animals behave? non-argumentative -Lab sheet: Observing discussions. animal behavior. -Article Do animals have -Pose questions and emotions? mediate responses as -Discussion notes and necessary. short answer essay.