How Do Animals Use Their Senses To Get Information From Their Environment

This unit was designed in collaboration with teachers from the Campbell Union Schoolhouse District

How exercise animals receive and answer to different types of data? How do animals employ the information to guide their actions and behaviors within their environments? In this unit of measurement students explore these questions by learning about creature senses and then engaging in several activities and a simulation where they experience showtime-hand how to perceive their surroundings and use the data to make decisions and guide their own behaviors. The unit culminates in a design claiming where students develop an brute model with input sensors and and so create a decision tree that demonstrates how the animal processes and responds to information.

Educational Outcomes

• Students depict how animals utilize their senses for survival
• Students identify uses for objects constitute without using sight for sensory perception
• Students employ a simulation to evaluate the effect of limited sensory perception on determination making
• Students create a decision tree (flow chart) that predicts animal behavior based on environmental conditions
• Students develop an animate being model with sensory receptors and describe its behavior to environmental input

STEAM Integration

Students sentry videos to learn how animals perceive the world around them and discuss how animals use this information for survival, providing practice and experience with using digital information to investigate phenomena. They appoint in kinesthetic simulations (performing arts) to model the experience of existence non-sighted while identifying objects and distances with their remaining senses. Students create a decision tree model to predict animate being behavior nether certain environmental conditions. The design challenge brings pupil through the blueprint thinking process as engineers and allows them to utilise the science concepts learned in previous lessons on animal responses to information received via external sensory receptors.

Standards

NGSS 4-LS1-2: Use a model to describe that animals receive different types of information through their senses, process the data in their brain, and reply to the information in different ways.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy W.four.7: Conduct short research projects that build cognition through investigation of dissimilar aspects of a topic.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy SL.iv.one: Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (i-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade iv topics and texts, edifice on others' ideas and expressing their ain conspicuously.

Unit Materials

This unit tin be completed using the RAFT Makerspace-in-a-Box kit . The kit contains many items with diverse attributes useful for different purposes by students. Examples include rigid items for construction such equally arts and crafts sticks, plastic rods, and cardboard tubes; flexible/cuttable items such every bit cream, chenille stems, straws, and cardstock for making customized structures; and items serving as connectors such equally paper clips, binder clips, and stickers/tape. Notation: Some lessons phone call for boosted items not included in the kit. We encourage facilitators to exist artistic and provide other materials to explore in the lessons. Questions? E-mail the states: education@raft.net

Maker Journal Pages

Students tape their learning in Maker Journal pages, sheets containing tasks and prompts specific to each lesson in the unit, including the culminating design challenge. These sheets encourage students to reflect on their learning throughout the unit and can be used every bit role of a larger student portfolio with which to demonstrate growth in concept noesis and design skills. These sheets can be copied for students or recreated by students in a jump notebook.

Tips for an Active Classroom

Communication is disquisitional in the design process. Students demand to be immune to talk, stand, and move around to larn materials. Help students go successful and treat the success of others past asking them to predict problems that might arise in the agile environs and ask them to suggest strategies for their own beliefs that volition ensure a positive working surroundings for all students and teachers.

Design Thinking

Our integrated STEAM units incorporate a non-linear blueprint thinking model, with each phase being repeatable to allow students to rework and iterate while developing a deeper understanding of the cadre concepts. The phases of the pattern thinking model are:

Empathize: Piece of work to fully understand the experience of the user

Ascertain: Process and synthesize findings from empathy piece of work to course a user point of view

Ideate: Explore a wide range and variety of possible ideas for solutions

Epitome: Transform ideas into a concrete form with which to larn and interact

Test: Refine prototypes, learn more than about the user, and refine original betoken of view

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Lesson 1: The World According to Animals (45 min)

Students obtain data and learn about different creature sensory receptors and the types of stimuli they are intended to detect. Students employ this data to discuss in teams how animals use the sensory input to survive in their environments.

Learning Targets

• Students volition exist able to draw the sensory receptors common to a diversity of animals
• Students will be able to draw how animals use the data received from sensory receptors to survive

Essential Questions

• How do animals receive information about their environments?
• How do animals use this information for survival?

Materials

• Pen or pencil
• Internet access
• Calculator and/or mobile device
• Web resources: Amazing Facts on Brute Senses | Animal Senses

LESSON Process

1. In training for this lesson, search the internet for pictures of animal sensory receptors ahead of time to provide boosted examples for students. Choose pictures from unlike types of animals such every bit snails, dogs or cats, fish, and insects to augment the word.
2. Enquire students to think almost how they know when the Dominicus is setting. Ask for volunteers to share ideas. Lead them towards the idea of perceiving the sunset through the senses (see sample dialog below).
3. Students access these videos: Amazing Facts on Animal Senses (2:59) | Animal Senses (ane:34).
4. Students list sensory receptors mentioned in the videos and their associated stimuli in the Maker Periodical.
5. Students work in teams to begin and discuss ways that animals utilise the information they receive from the environment to survive. They record their ideas in the Maker Journal and choose 1 animate being, sensory receptor, and its role in the survival of the animal as an example to share in a whole course discussion.

Sample teacher and student dialog

T:  "How do you usually know when the Sunday sets? What information tells yous this and how do y'all receive that information?"

South: "I observe the Lord's day getting lower in the sky." "It starts getting nighttime!" "I know because I can run into the Sun going abroad."

T: "In other words, you lot received information through your eyes, quickly thought nearly it, and determined the Sun is setting. Today nosotros volition explore this idea further by watching videos and then discussing how animals use information from their surround to survive. Make sure y'all all participate and be ready to discuss and share your ideas!"

S: "Can we piece of work together?" Do nosotros choose a specific animate being?" "Where exercise nosotros write things down?"

T: "You will work in teams and choose an animal that volition serve equally an example for your ideas. Your ideas volition be recorded in the lesson Maker Journal."

Assessment

Student groups discuss and compare their findings on unlike sensory receptors and their associated roles in survival of a specific animal. Check Maker Journal entries for bear witness of learning about sensory reception.

Lesson ii: Use Your Senses (45 min)

Students place, describe and determine uses for objects concealed in a catch purse without existence able to expect at the objects, modeling a type of sensory deprivation. They determine how their sense of touch on and other senses help them make decisions about what the object is and its potential uses.

Learning Targets

• Students will be able to obtain information almost objects without using the sense of sight.
• Students will be able to make decisions and develop ideas for potential uses of the identified objects.

Essential Questions

• In what ways do your senses help you draw an object?
• How practice your senses help you empathise what an object is useful for?
• How is the data nigh an object sent to your brain?

Materials

• Random objects (foam, craft sticks, caps, paper clips, etc.)
• Medium-sized paper or cloth numberless
• Paper or cloth for making blindfolds
• Pen or pencil
• Net access
• Reckoner and/or mobile device
• Web resources: Sensory Data Processing

LESSON PROCEDURE

1. Read and/or post the following sentence for students to read: "Dissimilar types of information are sent to the brain through different sensory receptors, allowing experiences to be perceived, stored as memories, and thus influence beliefs."
2. Students share their own case of something they saw (perceived) and remembered that also influenced how they behaved. Examples: Images from scary movies that however brand a person uncomfortable or an accident that changes the way a person drives.
3. Put random objects in bags. Requite a bag to each student group. One group member quickly makes a blindfold.
4. Students take turns putting on the blindfold and reaching into the handbag to take out an object. They describe the object based on what they feel, aroma, or hear and how it may be used based on their perceptions.
5. After all grouping members have taken a plow, students talk over how their senses help them to make decisions about what the object is and then discuss how it might be used. They record their observations in the Maker Journal.
6. Present or take students access the video: Sensory Information Processing (5:56)
7. Students record their understanding of how sensory receptors are able to detect different types of information to send to their brain and inform their decisions and ideas in the lesson Maker Journal.

Sample instructor and student dialog

T: "How does sensory input affect our behavior?"

S: "When I hear a expert song I feel happy." "If I touch something hot I will avert it next time!"

T: "Yes! Our behavior is primarily based on information we perceive virtually the world. Today we're going to experience sensory impecuniousness, that is, nosotros're non going to use all of our senses. Do y'all recollect you lot tin place objects in a pocketbook without looking at them?"

S: "I tin do it! I'yard good at playing games in the dark so this should be easy!"

T: "Yous will work in groups, exist blindfolded, and must remove objects from the bag so your group mates can run into them. Draw and identify them based on what you perceive with your senses and so discuss how that information guided your thinking about the objects."

Assessment

Students write their own descriptions of the relationship between sensory inputs and brute behaviors based on the lesson.

Lesson three: Bat and Moth! (45 min)

Student teams play a game called "Bat and Moth", similar to Marco Polo. Students talk over how they use their senses to make decisions on how to "capture" the moth. In other words, students experience behavioral changes influenced by data obtained via the senses.

Learning Target

• Students will be able describe how sensory inputs such equally sound tin can influence animal behaviors

Essential Questions

• How do bats use their senses to notice casualty?
• What information from the environment do bats rely on (what are they trying to sense)?
• How does hearing sound help bats and other animals make decisions and change behaviors?

Materials

• Pen or pencil
• Net access
• Calculator and/or mobile device
• Web resources: Bat Sense | Wonders of Echolocation

LESSON PROCEDURE

1. Preparation: Remove any hazards and obstacles from the space such as loose cords, extra article of furniture, student backpacks, etc.
2. Present or have students admission these videos: Bat Sense (3:08) | Wonders of Echolocation (3:18)
3. Review the rules of playing Marco Polo and then draw the game in terms of bats and moths (see sample dialog beneath). Remind students to avert running or lunging towards the students playing the moth.
4. Students determine the bat and moth roles for their groups. The bat students say "Bat" while the moth students say "Moth." The bat educatee must listen and use sound to get to the moth students.
5. Students switch roles until all grouping members accept taken a turn every bit the bat.
6. Students reflect on the feel in the lesson Maker Journal.
7. Student groups discuss the essential questions with another group and record their ideas in the Maker Journal.

Sample teacher and student dialog

T: "Who here has played Marco Polo?"

S: "You close your eyes and heed to people reply to "Marco" past proverb "Polo", and and so you get them!"

T: "Nosotros will play a similar game called "Bat and Moth" having the same bones rules. Choose who in your grouping will start as the bat and moth. For the bats, make sure your eyes stay closed and don't cheat! If necessary, make a quick blindfold or cover your eyes with your hands."

Due south: "Why are we playing this?" "How does this relate to our study of senses?"

T: "This activity simulates how bats perceive audio and distance data and apply information technology to find prey. They become the information, procedure it in their brains, and act accordingly. The best way to understand this is to experience it. Play overnice, be safe, and take fun!"

Assessment

Students review their Maker Journal entries and have other students ask them questions almost specific sensory receptors the bats and moths use. Students reverberate on the lesson and share their experiences.

Lesson iv: What is a Determination Tree? (45 min)

Pupil teams reverberate on their experiences in the Bat and Moth game in Lesson 3. They learn well-nigh and then create decision copse to demonstrate how data perceived past the bat leads to changes in its beliefs. These types of models will exist applied during the pattern challenge lesson in this unit.

Learning Targets

• Students will be able to design a decision tree
• Students will be able to use a decision tree to demonstrate how sensory information leads to behavioral changes in animals

Essential Questions

• What is a conclusion tree?
• How can determination copse be used to describe a bat'south behavior while tracking a moth?

Materials

• Pen or pencil
• Chart paper

LESSON Process

1. Review the Bat and Moth simulation from the previous lesson with students (run across sample dialog below for ideas).
2. Permit students talk over how they used their sense of hearing equally bats to observe and capture the moth.
3. Model an example decision tree on a large nautical chart in front of the class. Create the tree based on student decisions regarding playing outside under certain weather atmospheric condition (run into lesson Maker Journal for example).
4. For each condition in the decision tree, have students point whether or not they would play outside (count raised easily). Write the numbers of students in the tree in the advisable spaces.
5. Facilitate a discussion on how the moth used its senses and fabricated decisions to avoid beingness captured past the bat.
6. Each pupil group uses the template in the lesson Maker Periodical to create a decision tree based on the discussions and their experiences playing Bat and Moth.
7. Student groups compare and hash out their decision trees.

Sample instructor and student dialog

T: "Think about the previous lesson where nosotros played Bat and Moth. How did the bat apply its senses to catch the moth? What decisions did the moth make? How were those decisions reflected in its beliefs?"

S: "The bat used sound to make up one's mind how far away the moth was in a direction." "The moth detected the bat and moved away from it!"

T: "Yep! Today we are going to correspond those decisions visually in something called a decision tree. These representations look like flowcharts, which we've used before in grade. We'll consummate one together every bit an case and and then y'all will work with your groups to blueprint your own decision copse."

S: "How will we know what to put into the decision trees?"

T: "Recollect about your own experience while playing Bat and Moth. When the moth sounded close by, did you decide to walk quicker towards the sound? Does that seem similar what a bat would do when hunting for casualty?"

Assessment

Student groups discuss and compare their decision trees and explain their rationale for the blueprint. Review the logic represented in the group conclusion trees and provide suggestions for comeback.

Blueprint Challenge: Fauna Models

Student teams choose an animate being to model, including its external sensory receptors. They ideate to develop ideas for the animal model blueprint then build a prototype according to the criteria and constraints. Teams create a decision tree to demonstrate how sensory data is processed past the animal, leading to changes in behavior. During the test phase, educatee teams share their models with another team that reviews the model and decision tree and provides feedback to the sharing squad. Teams employ the feedback to make necessary changes to improve the model.

Design Prompts

• Build a model of an animal that includes its external sensory receptors.
• Create a decision tree for the animate being showing its predicted beliefs based on data obtained by the sensory receptors depicted in your model.

Materials

• RAFT Makerspace-in-a-Box
• Markers, pens, pencils
• Record
• Binder clips and/or paper clips
• Scissors, staplers, pigsty punches, rulers
• Computers or mobile devices
• Cyberspace access

LESSON Process

1. Nowadays and explain the design prompt(s) for this claiming (above).
2. Review and define the criteria and constraints listed below and these terms: iteration, paradigm. Alternatively, y'all can define them together as a class, providing students with voice and choice.
3. Assign student teams or assign students to specific groups.
4. Students follow steps in the blueprint process and tape their progress in the challenge Maker Journal.
5. Students share and compare their design solutions, reflect on the data drove/calculations, and provide peer feedback for improvement on future iterations.

The criteria and constraints for this claiming are listed below. Criteria are the requirements for the design or its expected functions or abilities. Constraints are limitations on the design such equally fourth dimension, space, bachelor materials, money, etc. The criteria and constraints are also listed in the Maker Periodical pages for this challenge.

Criteria & Constraints

• Model clearly resembles a existent fauna
• Model includes 2-3 sensory receptors common to the animal
• Model stays intact
• Model built with at least vi different provided materials
• Model completed in the given time
• Model includes a decision tree predicting behaviors for the animal based on sensory input

Ideate Phase

During the ideation phase students should take ample fourth dimension to hash out and research their ideas and potential impact. All ideas are welcome during the ideation stage, and students should be encouraged to think big. Students should capture their ideas using the Maker Journal or a digital tool (Google medico, other). Go along in mind students may render to this phase equally many times every bit needed.

Image Phase

Students select ane of the designs from the ideation stage to create using diverse materials. Initially they volition have a rough prototype of the pattern that should eventually go better as they exam it and brand refinements. Students may also desire to experiment with solutions that focus on changes in beliefs. In this case encourage them to create a detailed plan besides as a device that will aid to remind them or encourage this change in behavior. Students use the Maker Journal to draw and label their designs. Students may demand to return to this phase as they iterate.

Examination Phase

Students self evaluate as they test their designs in the Maker Journal. This action should be focused on brevity and conducted at a brisk pace. Students should exist going through ideas, building prototypes and evaluating their designs for at least three or four blueprint cycles. Build time should be quick and designs should exist kept simple. Students may return to this phase as they iterate.

Cess

Pupil groups discuss and compare their solutions and give each other feedback on the quality of their fauna models, representation of sensory receptors and the decision trees. Students also requite suggestions for improvements to the blueprint for future iterations. During the presentations, assistance students focus their thinking on the data collected or constructive feedback and interpreting the results to better ascertain the design prompts.

Source: https://raft.net/lessons/animal-responses-to-information/

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