Structures of Life
Investigation 3: Meet the Crayfish
Part 4
Crayfish Territory
Students set up a long-term observation and recording system for investigating territorial behavior in crayfish.
3. Lesson set up and Management
1.3.L.3 Describe how its environment, other life forms and availability of food and/or other resources influence an organism's behavior and ability to survive.
2.1.5 Record and report observations, explanations, and conclusions using written and oral expression.
Crayfish require clean, cool water, food and space.
Behavior is what an animal does.
Habitat is where an animal lives.
3. Lesson set up and Management
Materials:
1. The houses should already be set up from prior preparation.
2. A transparency of student sheet No 16.
3. Come up with a way of identifying the different crayfish. You can use the suggestion on page 25. The kids seem to know which crayfish is which and will usually come up with their own way of identifying the differences.
4. Plan daily observations of 5-10 minutes for the next 4 days. You will also need 20 minutes on Day 5 for discussion.
5. Remember to keep checking the growth of your plants.
Student Management:
1. Keep all materials at the station at which the students are working. Let the students go to each workstation and explore.
2. Set rules and guidelines for observing the animals during non-science times.
3. Keep Moving! If you are constantly moving, it will keep everyone on task.
4. Watch for the child who may want to experiment inappropriately with the crayfish.
5. Remember to keep checking the growth of your plants.
1. You can lengthen or shorten the time on any lesson.
2. Use pages 2 & 3 to help guide further inquiry at the end of every part.
3. If students are afraid of touching crayfish, use 2 plastic spoons to scoop them up to place into the basins.
4. Give students time to discuss their observations with each other.
5. Keep word banks and content inquiry charts up so students can see and have more time to copy later, if needed. It's nice if you can keep them up all the time and just add to them as you go.
Writing Support:
1. Have students reflect on the day's lesson in their journal.
2. Start and finish each lesson with a KWLQ chart. ("What do I know?" "What do I want to know?" "What have I learned?" and "Are there any more questions to investigate?")
3. Have students write all word banks and inquiries in their journals.
4. Students can again pretend to be a crayfish and write a story about protecting their territory.
5. Or students can again write stories about a day in the life of a crayfish.
Reading Support:
Read FOSS's Science story Life Cycle of a Crayfish.
Check the Resources section of the teacher's guide for more reading suggestions, or the literature link on this site.