ND Curriculum Initiative

Subject & Standards

Understandings & Goals

Enduring Understanding: I want my students to know, understand, and appreciate the life cycle of a butterfly. Goal(s): To understand the characteristics of a butterfly. To study a butterfly’s life cycle.

Questions Answered

Essential questions: What is a butterfly? What are the steps in the life cycle of a butterfly? What are the defense and sense mechanisms of a butterfly? Objectives: Students will be able to identify differences between a butterfly and a moth. Students will be able to identify and understand the four steps in the butterfly’s life cycle. Students will be able to understand a butterfly’s defense and sense mechanisms. Students will be able to identify a specific species of a butterfly. Students will raise and release a Painted Lady butterfly species.

Assessment

What quiz and test items (e.g. simple content-focused questions that require a single, best answer) will provide evidence of understanding? *Traditional quizzes, crossword & matching activities *Online fill-in the blank quizzes *Classroom games to recall factual information What academic prompts (e.g. open-ended questions or problems that require students to think critically and then to prepare a response / product / performance) will provide evidence of understanding? *Students will use laptops to research *Students will document butterfly information in Science portfolios *Students will create butterfly life cycle posters *Students will create silk-screened butterfly batiks What performance tasks and projects (e.g. complex challenges that are authentic, mirror the real world and require a performance or product) will you include that will provide evidence of student understanding?  *Word processing of butterfly species information *Develop a Power Point slideshow on Life Cycle of a Butterfly *E-Mail questions to butterfly experts *Design and create a butterfly garden *Nurture and document the cycle of Painted Lady caterpillars to butterflies What other evidence (e.g. observations, work samples, dialogues, student self-assessment) of understanding will you collect?  *Cooperative group work *Teacher observation *Science journaling *Rubric assessment for butterfly report and power point slideshow *Peer teaching of researched information *Online self-assessment quizzes

Instructional Strategies

My students will incorporate inquiry and project based strategies during this unit. Students will begin investigating five main questions. Utilizing this information, students will formulate a butterfly PowerPoint presentation. This project-based product will be used to teach other students about a butterfly’s life cycle. Using online research, students will create a butterfly garden that will be used to raise five Painted Lady caterpillars. Students will document each stage of development. When the metamorphosis event occurs, students will host an informational butterfly release event for other students to attend.