Activity One- Compare and Connect
Objectives:
- Students will be able to identify similarities and connections between animals, plants, tools, machines, and medicines.
- Students will learn the definition of biomimicry and explain it in their own words.
Materials: Pictures for biomimicry (digital or printed) Classroom Timer
Plan:
This first activity will be a part of the introduction lesson for students. The most important part of this lesson is to not give the students answers or things to look for to compare and connect. The point of this activity is for students to have authentic conversations with their peers and teacher about what they notice in the pictures.
In the classroom, there are two ways that I believe will be the most effective in carrying out this lesson. The first option is whole group instruction combined with the Think, Pair, Share strategy. I will have students come to the carpet and explain to them that today we will be looking at groups of pictures and we want to compare and connect the pictures. I will project a picture of an airplane and a bird and ask the students to first think of some attributes that are the same. I will give the students 1 minute to talk with their shoulder partner about what they noticed that was the same. While students are talking I will be circulating the carpet to hear the different discussions. After the one minute is up I will call on two pairs to share the similarities that they noticed and repeat this process for 2 more sets of pictures.
The second option is to split the students up into groups of three or four and have the pictures in different spots of the classroom and have the groups talk among each other and find the similarities between their two pictures. After the students have had time to discuss, we will come back to the carpet and each group would present the similarities that they found.
After the compare and connect. I would explain to the students that the pictures we looked at are all examples of biomimicry. I would teach the definition, have the students repeat it, and ask them to tell me in their own words. To add some literacy to our activity, I would also ask about the beginning sound of biomimicry, how many syllables the word has, etc.
Comments: