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First Grade, Lesson 2: Protecting the Critical Habitat of the Manatee and the Loggerhead Turtle

First Grade, Lesson 2: Protecting the Critical Habitat of the Manatee and the Lo

Concept 

Regardless of the natural surroundings or the day-to-day conditions in any given place, plants and animals rely on their environment to provide them with the raw materials they need for life and the conditions to live safely and without stress. To protect manatees and loggerheads, we need to protect their homes.

Essential Question 

What do manatees and loggerhead turtles have in common with you and your neighborhood?

Step 1 -- Connect (The Concept to Prior Knowledge)

Challenge

Students will identify the characteristics of the manatee and the loggerhead turtle and give evidence of similarities and differences between these species and humans. Students will describe the kinds of homes (and play spaces) each species needs to survive (example: manatee needs clean and deep water).

Materials

- Maps of schoolyard from Lesson 1, Step 1
- Species profiles
- Story: Manny the Manatee and the Mystery of the Murky Water, an original Rainforest Alliance story
- Map that includes coastal ecosystem of Belize

Procedure

  1. Students will identify places where they feel most comfortable, safe and healthy on the map of their schoolyard/playspace.
  2. Students are acquainted with the manatee and the loggerhead turtle using the species profiles from the Rainforest Alliance.
  3. Students will be acquainted with a map of the coastal ecosystem of Belize and the river system discussed in Manny the Manatee and the Mystery of the Murky Water, a Rainforest Alliance story.
  4. Discuss with students what is different in this landscape as compared to their own neighborhoods.

Step 2 -- Literature/Discuss (Give Expert Information Book; Ask Questions)

Challenge

Students learn about the Belize environment through a story and hear about changes in land practices that may threaten the comfort, safety and health like those that are faced by the manatee and loggerhead turtle in Belize.

Materials

- Story: Manny the Manatee and the Mystery of the Murky Water, an original Rainforest Alliance story

Procedure

  1. Students listen to Manny the Manatee and the Mystery of the Murky Water.
  2. Students discuss the changes in Manny's environment that make life uncomfortable.
  3. Students discuss things that have changed in their own neighborhoods that may have changed the way that they play or walk to school or threatened their comfort and safety in these places.

Step 3A -- Practice (Math and Learning Centers)

Challenge

Students understand the landscape that Manny lives in by looking at maps that scale sequentially closer to the coastal ecosystem from a map that includes North America.

Materials

- Maps of the world, Central America and Belize

Procedure

  1. Place the sequentially scaled maps on the floor in a random order and have students order them so that they begin to focus on the coastal Belize area.
  2. The last map in the sequence should be one that contains Manny's home.

Step 3B -- Create (Performance Tasks Related to Standard Indicators)

Challenge

Students will create a map similar to their schoolyard map that represents the area where the manatee and loggerhead turtles live.

Materials

- Paper, pencils

Procedure

On another roughly outlined map, students draw their conception of the place where the manatee and loggerhead live, based on what they know about the animals from different resources like the slideshow, book and species profile.

Step 4 -- Present (Edit Work/Students Present Projects)

Challenge

To connect their own sense of place with the place where the manatee and turtle live.

Materials

- Map of Belize from Step 3B

Procedure

Students will describe to others what they think the manatee and the loggerhead need to be comfortable, healthy and safe. They will use the Belize map they have created as reference.

The Rainforest Alliance curricula is unique in that it teaches language arts, math, science, social studies and the arts while addressing the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for English language arts and mathematics. Our multidisciplinary curricula present information on forests, biodiversity, local communities and sustainable practices. Lessons provide a global perspective on the importance of protecting the world's natural resources, locally and globally, while giving students opportunities for direct action.

To help teachers seamlessly integrate our resources into their lesson plans, we have correlated our kindergarten through 8th grade and climate curriculum guides to the Common Core State Standards for both English language arts and mathematics. Please feel free to use these correlations to help guide you through these lessons, as well to help you identify extensions and adaptations to advance your work.

The Rainforest Alliance can help your school district incorporate local standards and closely align our curricula with the educational mandates in your region.

In addition to the above standards, the education program seeks to advance alignment opportunities with the US Partnership for Education for Sustainable Development; National Education for Sustainability (K-12) Student Learning Standards.

For any further inquiries, please contact us at education@ra.org.