Finding features
View Sequence overviewStudents will:
- explore the varying body coverings and/or feeding features of animals.
- group together animals with similar body coverings and/or feeding features.
Students will represent their understanding as they:
- engage in group discussions to compare their ideas.
- contribute to a class ideas map about animal body coverings, and/or features that enable feeding.
In this lesson, assessment is formative.
Feedback might focus on:
- Can students group animals according to body coverings (fur, feather, scales) and/or feeding features (mouth, beak)?
- Do students recognise that listening is a scientific method of observation?
Whole class
Class science journal (digital or hard-copy)
Optional: Seeds planted in Lesson 2
Animal body coverings investigation (optional)
At least two samples to simulate animal body coverings, such as artificial fur and a ball of wool
A box to use as a mystery box that can conceal the simulated animal body coverings
Animal Cards created for Lesson 5
Craft feathers
Optional: An earthworm
Optional: Organise a therapy dog to visit the class if appropriate
Note: A therapy dog is not the same thing as a service dog/animal. Therapy dogs undertake specific training to ensure they act appropriately in a wide range of situations with a wide range of people. They should be trained to be accustomed to accepted pats/affection from people. Service animals are trained to support people with specific disabilities or challenges. These dogs are in fact working dogs, and have a specific job to do. They should not be touched or distracted from the important task of providing support to their owner.
Safety measures must be taken to ensure the safety of students near dogs. These include:
- each pupil-dog interaction must be based on voluntariness on the part of the dog.
- interactions must be supervised by the dog owner.
- the dog owner must react as appropriate to any sign of concern, even to subtle signs, especially withdrawal behaviour.
How animals eat investigation (optional)
Videos depicting birds eating, loaded at the appropriate timings if indicated below
- Glossy Black cockatoos eating (1:05)
- Lorikeet drinking- close up (4:13) – first 1 minute is sufficient
- Australian pelican eating fish (0:08)
- Kookaburra eating mouse (0:14)
- Zebra finch eating seed (0:05)
Optional: Top 40 Bird Songs
Demonstration copy of Bird beaks Resource sheet
Lesson
The Inquire phase allows students to cycle progressively and with increasing complexity through the key science ideas related to the core concepts. Each Inquire cycle is divided into three teaching and learning routines that allow students to systematically build their knowledge and skills in science and incorporate this into their current understanding of the world.
When designing a teaching sequence, it is important to consider the knowledge and skills that students will need in the final Act phase. Consider what the students already know and identify the steps that need to be taken to reach the level required. How could you facilitate students’ understanding at each step? What investigations could be designed to build the skills at each step?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkRe-orient
If you are still observing the growth of students' planted seeds, add to the 'How seeds grow - Observation recording table' in the class science journal.
Revisit the mind map created in the previous lesson when students sorted animals according to how they moved.
Review the questions students asked about animals by referring to the class science journal page ‘What do we want to learn about plants and animals?’
The Inquire phase allows students to cycle progressively and with increasing complexity through the key science ideas related to the core concepts. Each Inquire cycle is divided into three teaching and learning routines that allow students to systematically build their knowledge and skills in science and incorporate this into their current understanding of the world.
When designing a teaching sequence, it is important to consider the knowledge and skills that students will need in the final Act phase. Consider what the students already know and identify the steps that need to be taken to reach the level required. How could you facilitate students’ understanding at each step? What investigations could be designed to build the skills at each step?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkIdentifying and constructing questions is the creative driver of the inquiry process. It allows students to explore what they know and how they know it. During the Inquire phase of the LIA Framework, the Question routine allows for past activities to be reviewed and to set the scene for the investigation that students will undertake. The use of effective questioning techniques can influence students’ view and interpretation of upcoming content, open them to exploration and link to their current interests and science capital.
When designing a teaching sequence, it is important to spend some time considering the mindset of students at the start of each Inquire phase. What do you want students to be thinking about, what do they already know and what is the best way for them to approach the task? What might tap into their curiosity?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkObserving external features
This lesson describes two potential investigations, one which explores animal body coverings and one which explores ways animals eat. You can choose to do either or both investigations with your students.
When beginning the body coverings investigation, pose the question: What do animals feel like if I pat them?
When beginning the investigation into ways animals eat, pose the questions: Who can eat things the same way we do? and How do birds eat?
The Inquire phase allows students to cycle progressively and with increasing complexity through the key science ideas related to the core concepts. Each Inquire cycle is divided into three teaching and learning routines that allow students to systematically build their knowledge and skills in science and incorporate this into their current understanding of the world.
When designing a teaching sequence, it is important to consider the knowledge and skills that students will need in the final Act phase. Consider what the students already know and identify the steps that need to be taken to reach the level required. How could you facilitate students’ understanding at each step? What investigations could be designed to build the skills at each step?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkThe Investigate routine provides students with an opportunity to explore the key ideas of science, to plan and conduct an investigation, and to gather and record data. The investigations are designed to systematically develop content knowledge and skills through increasingly complex processes of structured inquiry, guided inquiry and open inquiry approaches. Students are encouraged to process data to identify trends and patterns and link them to the real-world context of the teaching sequence.
When designing a teaching sequence, consider the diagnostic assessment (Launch phase) that identified the alternative conceptions that students held. Are there activities that challenge these ideas and provide openings for discussion? What content knowledge and skills do students need to be able to complete the final (Act phase) task? How could you systematically build these through the investigation routines? Are there opportunities to build students’ understanding and skills in the science inquiry processes through the successive investigations?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkExploring animal body coverings
Discuss experiences where students have patted or held an animal in their hands.
- What did its fur/scales/skin feel like?
- What other animal might feel similar to that? Why?
Remind students of safety around animals, specific to the animals they are likely to encounter in their local area.
Possible animals to discuss may include:
- biting insects
- venomous spiders
- snakes
- jelly fish
- blue-ringed octopus
- dogs (remind students that they must always ask for permission before patting an unknown dog)
- in northern areas, crocodiles, cassowaries and cane toads
Without letting students see, place one of the simulated animal body coverings into the mystery box.
Show students the mystery box and explain that inside is an item that represents an animal’s body covering. Invite a student to place their hand inside the mystery box, feel the item, and describe it for classmates. Repeat this with multiple students.
Ask those who have heard the descriptions to guess the type of covering being described and the animal/s it might belong to.
Reveal the item and discuss it further, identifying the animals that have this type of body covering.
- How did (students' names) describe this body covering when they could feel it?
- Do you agree with the description?
- Now that you can see the body covering, what else would you add to the description?
- What animals' bodies have this type of covering?
Repeat with the other simulated body covering you have prepared.
Next ask students to close their eyes and distribute a craft feather to each one. Without opening their eyes, call on students to describe the item and guess what it might be.
Allow students to open their eyes, and using similar question prompts to the ones above, discuss the feather.
Optional: Discuss camouflage—when animals disguise their appearance, usually by blending in with their surroundings.
Optional: Introduce the visiting therapy dog/pet to the class. Possible ways to interact with the visiting dog include:
- Discuss the features of the animal, including its body covering (fur, feathers, skin etc).
- If appropriate, and if the dog volunteers, allow students to gently touch the animal and describe how the body covering feels (soft, furry, fluffy, smooth, hard, rough).
- Discuss which animals might feel similar.
Animal body coverings
Animals’ body coverings perform a variety of functions.
Animal body coverings perform a variety of functions. Some animals, both predator and prey, have external features used for attack or defence, such as spines and spikes. Hair, fur and feathers are another group of external features that enable animals to cope in harsh environments and prevent heat loss. In some cases, these features are also used for communication, such as birds’ brightly coloured feathers, or the moving patterns on a chameleon’s scales.
Birds’ feathers are light but very strong, flexible but very tough. Although it looks like feathers grow all over a bird, they actually grow in specific areas called feather tracks. In between the feather tracks are down feathers. This keeps the body weight down. Feathers are made of a tough and flexible material called keratin. The spine down the middle, called the shaft, is hollow. The vanes are on the two halves of the feather. They are made of thousands of branches called barbs. Because there are many spaces between these barbs, a feather has as much air as matter.
Many students are intrigued by the natural world, particularly the weird and wonderful, such as camouflage. Some students may share experiences and knowledge of animal camouflage or ask questions about it. Basic camouflage understanding can also be helpful for some students when they make their model in Lesson 8 of this unit.
However it is not until Year 5 that students examine, and are assessed, on ‘how particular structural features and behaviours of living things enable their survival in specific habitats’. This is worth keeping in mind when deciding how much time and focus to spend on the topic of camouflage.
Animal body coverings perform a variety of functions. Some animals, both predator and prey, have external features used for attack or defence, such as spines and spikes. Hair, fur and feathers are another group of external features that enable animals to cope in harsh environments and prevent heat loss. In some cases, these features are also used for communication, such as birds’ brightly coloured feathers, or the moving patterns on a chameleon’s scales.
Birds’ feathers are light but very strong, flexible but very tough. Although it looks like feathers grow all over a bird, they actually grow in specific areas called feather tracks. In between the feather tracks are down feathers. This keeps the body weight down. Feathers are made of a tough and flexible material called keratin. The spine down the middle, called the shaft, is hollow. The vanes are on the two halves of the feather. They are made of thousands of branches called barbs. Because there are many spaces between these barbs, a feather has as much air as matter.
Many students are intrigued by the natural world, particularly the weird and wonderful, such as camouflage. Some students may share experiences and knowledge of animal camouflage or ask questions about it. Basic camouflage understanding can also be helpful for some students when they make their model in Lesson 8 of this unit.
However it is not until Year 5 that students examine, and are assessed, on ‘how particular structural features and behaviours of living things enable their survival in specific habitats’. This is worth keeping in mind when deciding how much time and focus to spend on the topic of camouflage.
The Inquire phase allows students to cycle progressively and with increasing complexity through the key science ideas related to the core concepts. Each Inquire cycle is divided into three teaching and learning routines that allow students to systematically build their knowledge and skills in science and incorporate this into their current understanding of the world.
When designing a teaching sequence, it is important to consider the knowledge and skills that students will need in the final Act phase. Consider what the students already know and identify the steps that need to be taken to reach the level required. How could you facilitate students’ understanding at each step? What investigations could be designed to build the skills at each step?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkFollowing an investigation, the Integrate routine provides time and space for data to be evaluated and insights to be synthesized. It reveals new insights, consolidates and refines representations, generalises context and broadens students’ perspectives. It allows student thinking to become visible and opens formative feedback opportunities. It may also lead to further questions being asked, allowing the Inquire phase to start again.
When designing a teaching sequence, consider the diagnostic assessment that was undertaken during the Launch phase. Consider if alternative conceptions could be used as a jumping off point to discussions. How could students represent their learning in a way that would support formative feedback opportunities? Could small summative assessment occur at different stages in the teaching sequence?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkWhat do we now know about animal body coverings?
On a new page in the class science journal titled ‘What do animals feel like when I pat them?’, create a table to compare the body coverings students have just described.
| Body covering | Description | Animals with this body covering |
| Fur | Feels like: Looks like: | some dogs, cats, kangaroo, etc. |
Optional: Student(s) hold an earthworm in their hands with their eyes open. Discuss how the worm feels and add to the table.
Group the animals in the Animal cards set, based on body coverings: feathers, skin, scales, shell.
Add the groupings to the ideas map begun in Lesson 6.
The Inquire phase allows students to cycle progressively and with increasing complexity through the key science ideas related to the core concepts. Each Inquire cycle is divided into three teaching and learning routines that allow students to systematically build their knowledge and skills in science and incorporate this into their current understanding of the world.
When designing a teaching sequence, it is important to consider the knowledge and skills that students will need in the final Act phase. Consider what the students already know and identify the steps that need to be taken to reach the level required. How could you facilitate students’ understanding at each step? What investigations could be designed to build the skills at each step?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkThe Investigate routine provides students with an opportunity to explore the key ideas of science, to plan and conduct an investigation, and to gather and record data. The investigations are designed to systematically develop content knowledge and skills through increasingly complex processes of structured inquiry, guided inquiry and open inquiry approaches. Students are encouraged to process data to identify trends and patterns and link them to the real-world context of the teaching sequence.
When designing a teaching sequence, consider the diagnostic assessment (Launch phase) that identified the alternative conceptions that students held. Are there activities that challenge these ideas and provide openings for discussion? What content knowledge and skills do students need to be able to complete the final (Act phase) task? How could you systematically build these through the investigation routines? Are there opportunities to build students’ understanding and skills in the science inquiry processes through the successive investigations?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkExploring how animals eat
Discuss foods the students have eaten recently and which animals have a mouth similar to a human mouth.
- What food did you eat?
- Did you need to chew it, or could you just swallow it? Why/why not?
- Which part of your mouth did you use for eating?
- Lips, tongue, teeth.
- What other animals have teeth, lips and/or tongues?
- What animals have a different kind of ‘mouth’?
- Do birds have a mouth like a human mouth?
- What is the same? What is different?
Show videos depicting birds eating (see materials list) to confirm or challenge students' ideas about birds' mouths before discussing further.
- What is the bird using to eat?
- What is similar about the way a bird eats and the way humans eat?
- We both have/use tongues.
- Why do birds and humans need a tongue?
- To move food around in our mouth when we are chewing and swallowing, to help us makes different sounds when we talk/sing.
- Do other animals also have a tongue? Which ones?
Take students on a bird watching expedition around the schoolyard.
Before the bird watching expedition
Discuss how some animals can be difficult to see when they are hidden in bushes and grasses, and that as scientists we need to also use our hearing.
On a new page in the class science journal entitled 'What birds are in our schoolyard?', use the Predict, Reason, Observe, Explain (PROE) strategy to record students' predictions about what birds might be heard and seen in the schoolyard in the P and R sections of the chart.
Optional: Listen to the calls of the birds you have predicted you will see, from the Top 40 Bird Songs.
During the bird watching expedition
Observe which birds can be heard and seen, reminding students to sit quietly, and sometimes close their eyes. Record observations by writing notes (teacher) and/or taking videos and photographs on a digital device.
After the bird watching expedition
Complete the O and E sections of the PROE chart.
| What birds are in our schoolyard? |
| Predict- what birds will we see? magpies pigeons kookaburras ibis |
| Reason- why do we think that? James' favourite birds are magpies. Siena saw a pigeon on the playground yesterday. Jihan saw a kookaburra when the family was camping by the river. Tien sees ibis when he goes to shops with his mum. |
| Observe- what did we see? pigeons noisy miners magpie |
| Explain- why do we think we saw those birds? Why did we not see birds we thought we might see? Pigeons eat all the scrap food left behind after lunch. The noisy miners live in the big trees near the back oval. We saw them chasing other birds away. The magpies live on the back oval too. They're too big for the noisy miners to scare off. We didn't see any kookaburras because they usually live near rivers or creeks. Our school is not close to water. |
Sample completed PROE chart.
Birds’ beaks
Introducing different bird beaks to Foundation students can spark their curiosity.
Introducing different bird beaks to Foundation students can spark their curiosity and help them to understand that while all birds have beaks of some kind, they differ in size and shape. This can also be helpful for some students when they make their model in lesson eight.
When introducing concepts that relate structure to function, it is important to use the correct terms to avoid misconceptions. A bird uses its beak to eat (its function). It is not appropriate to say that the purpose of the beak is to eat, as this implies it was designed for only this function, and some beaks have multiple functions including keeping the bird cool and for attracting mates.
Introducing different bird beaks to Foundation students can spark their curiosity and help them to understand that while all birds have beaks of some kind, they differ in size and shape. This can also be helpful for some students when they make their model in lesson eight.
When introducing concepts that relate structure to function, it is important to use the correct terms to avoid misconceptions. A bird uses its beak to eat (its function). It is not appropriate to say that the purpose of the beak is to eat, as this implies it was designed for only this function, and some beaks have multiple functions including keeping the bird cool and for attracting mates.
Predict, Reason, Observe, Explain
PROE is a tool to engage students in the investigative process and support deep thinking.
This is an opportunity to introduce the PROE approach to scientific investigation from the very first year in formal education.
PROE is a tool to engage students in the investigative process and support deep thinking. It can be implemented with a class, collaborative teams or individually to monitor students thinking and provide feedback to guide inquiry. It provides a structure for inquiry that encourages students to develop argumentation skills.
Before an investigation, students Predict what they think will happen and give Reasons for their prediction. During the investigation students Observe what happens. When the investigation is completed, students Explain why they think these things happened and compare it to their prediction and the findings of others.
Modelling and guiding Foundation students in this process can support them in subsequent years of schooling, and supports them to begin linking evidence to their observations.
This is an opportunity to introduce the PROE approach to scientific investigation from the very first year in formal education.
PROE is a tool to engage students in the investigative process and support deep thinking. It can be implemented with a class, collaborative teams or individually to monitor students thinking and provide feedback to guide inquiry. It provides a structure for inquiry that encourages students to develop argumentation skills.
Before an investigation, students Predict what they think will happen and give Reasons for their prediction. During the investigation students Observe what happens. When the investigation is completed, students Explain why they think these things happened and compare it to their prediction and the findings of others.
Modelling and guiding Foundation students in this process can support them in subsequent years of schooling, and supports them to begin linking evidence to their observations.
The Inquire phase allows students to cycle progressively and with increasing complexity through the key science ideas related to the core concepts. Each Inquire cycle is divided into three teaching and learning routines that allow students to systematically build their knowledge and skills in science and incorporate this into their current understanding of the world.
When designing a teaching sequence, it is important to consider the knowledge and skills that students will need in the final Act phase. Consider what the students already know and identify the steps that need to be taken to reach the level required. How could you facilitate students’ understanding at each step? What investigations could be designed to build the skills at each step?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkFollowing an investigation, the Integrate routine provides time and space for data to be evaluated and insights to be synthesized. It reveals new insights, consolidates and refines representations, generalises context and broadens students’ perspectives. It allows student thinking to become visible and opens formative feedback opportunities. It may also lead to further questions being asked, allowing the Inquire phase to start again.
When designing a teaching sequence, consider the diagnostic assessment that was undertaken during the Launch phase. Consider if alternative conceptions could be used as a jumping off point to discussions. How could students represent their learning in a way that would support formative feedback opportunities? Could small summative assessment occur at different stages in the teaching sequence?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkWhat do we now know about how animals eat?
Referring to the Bird beaks Resource sheet, discuss the different shapes of the bird beaks.
- What birds could we hear on our bird watching expedition?
- What kind of beaks do these birds have? How would you compare them to the ones in the picture?
- How would we describe the bird beaks in the pictures?
- Big, small, long, curved.
- Why do you think bird's beaks are shaped differently?
- Because they eat different foods, and their beak helps them do that.
- What does a magpie eat?
- Worms and bugs from the ground.
- How does their long, sharp beak help them with that?
- They can easily stick it into the group and catch the bugs.
Add students’ ideas about different ways animals eat and different beak types to the ideas map begun in Lesson 6.
Optional: Further discuss which bird beaks suit particular food types.
- Which beak do you think would be best for cracking open hard nuts and fruits?
- Red-tailed Black-Cockatoo.
- Which beak do you think would be best for sucking nectar from flowers?
- Eastern Spinebill.
- Which beak do you think would be best for eating tiny insects or small seeds?
- Superb Fairy-wren.
- Which beak do you think would be best for eating small lizards, worms, frogs, beetles?
- Australian Magpie—its beak is big and strong enough to hold larger catches such as lizards, and pointy enough to also catch insects and their larvae.
Optional: Research to find which beak shapes the schoolyard birds have and group them accordingly.
Reflect on the lesson
You might:
- add relevant words and images to the class word wall.
- discuss whether the students have any new questions about animals features and add them to the first page of the class science journal.
- revisit the question ‘Do other animals eat things the same way we do?’ Discuss and record the findings in the class science journal:
- No, not all animals eat things the same way we do…
- Some animals have mouths like us with teeth for chewing…
- Birds have beaks, which come in different shapes… and a tongue…