Science and Technology/Engineering
25 Grade 7
Lauren Weiss and Margaret Krone
Systems and Cycles
Students in grade 7 focus on systems and cycles using their understanding of structures and functions, connections and relationships in systems, and flow of matter and energy developed in earlier grades. A focus on systems requires students to apply concepts and skills across disciplines, since most natural and designed systems and cycles are complex and interactive. They gain experience with plate tectonics, interactions of humans and Earth processes, organism systems to support and propagate life, ecosystem dynamics, motion and energy systems, and key technological systems used by society. Through grade 7, students begin a process of moving from a more concrete to an abstract perspective, since many of the systems and cycles studied are not directly observable or experienced. This also creates a foundation for exploring cause and effect relationships in more depth in grade 8.[1] [2]
LS1. From Molecules to Organisms: Structures and Processes
- 7.MS-LS1-4. Construct an explanation based on evidence for how characteristic animal behaviors and specialized plant structures increase the probability of successful reproduction of animals and plants.
Falcon Curriculum Core Categories
Animal Behavior
Falcon Curriculum Essential Question
What characteristic animal behaviors do peregrine falcons have to ensure successful reproduction?
Materials
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Sample Plan
This lesson should be taught in March-June when the falcon cam livestream is available. If that is not possible, you can use the prerecorded falcon cam clips.
Hand out the journals. Explain that students will be studying falcons through the falcon cam livestream and will use the journals to document observations.
Read, watch, and discuss the About Falcons sections and the Falcon Curriculum videos. Note important vocabulary needed to make accurate observations, including Life Cycle and Behaviors vocabulary.
Give them a standard way to document each observation and do the first few as a class:
- Date
- Time (Start watching – end watching)
- Weather
- What happens in the nest box
- Adult falcons present?
- Can you identify if it’s the male, female, or a floater?
- What behaviors are they exhibiting? (Pair bonding? Prey deliveries? Incubation? Nest defense? Preening? Loafing? Sleeping?)
- Offspring?
- Eggs present?
- When were they laid? (Check the @DuBoisFalcons Twitter account for the most accurate information about that)
- How many?
- What do they look like?
- Are they being incubated? (Hard incubation does not start until the second-to-last egg is laid.)
- Are they being enfluffeled?
- Do you see signs of hatching? (Approximately 28 days to hatch) Have students estimate when the eggs will hatch.
- Chicks present?
- When did they start hatching? When did they hatch?
- How many?
- What do they look like?
- What behaviors are they exhibiting? (Prey deliveries? Preening? Sleeping? Scooting? Walking?)
- Banding?
- Mark down the bands of each chick and whether it’s a male or female.
- Do you see signs of getting ready to fledge? (Juvenile feathers, branching, lots of flapping exercises, etc.) Have students estimate when the chicks will fledge.
- Juveniles present?
- When did they fledge?
- What do they look like?
- What behaviors are they exhibiting?
- Eggs present?
- Adult falcons present?
Watch the Falcon Cam livestream during class, and (if possible) have students watch for homework to see if the falcons do different behaviors at different points.
When wrapping up the lesson after weeks/months of observing the Falcon Cam, have students compile a brief report on what characteristic animal behaviors do peregrine falcons have to ensure successful reproduction, using their observations as evidence.
Follow @DuBoisFalcons for updates, and tweet if students have any questions about the nesting season. Additionally, as a class, participate in the chick naming contest. The contest is always announced on Twitter on Banding Day.
LS2. Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics
- 7.MS-LS2-2. Describe how relationships among and between organisms in an ecosystem can be competitive, predatory, parasitic, and mutually beneficial and that these interactions are found across multiple ecosystems.
- 7.MS-LS2-4. Analyze data to provide evidence that disruptions (natural or human-made) to any physical or biological component of an ecosystem can lead to shifts in all its populations.
Falcon Curriculum Core Categories
Conservation and Policy
Falcon Curriculum Essential Question
What was the relationship like between humans and peregrine falcons prior to the decline of falconry, between then and the environmentalist movement in the 1960s, and what is it like now? How has that relationship affected peregrine falcons and their populations?
Materials
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Sample Plan
Read and watch About Falcons: Conservation, Falcon Curriculum: Conservation, Advanced videos, and History of Falconry with Chris Davis video. Discuss how the relationship between humans and peregrine falcons has changed constantly throughout history.
Have students make a timeline demonstrating the relationship between humans and peregrine falcons, using information from the readings and videos. Have them do additional research on some of the points mentioned in the materials, like various policies, and find additional images to add to their timelines.
PS3. Energy
- 7.MS-PS3-1. Construct and interpret data and graphs to describe the relationships among kinetic energy, mass, and speed of an object.
Falcon Curriculum Core Categories
Anatomy and Life Cycle
Animal Behavior
Falcon Curriculum Essential Question
How is sexual dimorphism in peregrine falcons advantageous to males (1/3 smaller than females) as the primary hunters for the pair?
Materials
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Sample Plan
Read About Falcons: Basic Information, Appearance, and Prey and Hunting and watch the Falcon Curriculum: Prey and Hunting videos. Discuss sexual dimorphism.
Do the Wingshot experiment:
- Separate the students into groups for the experiment.
- Have each group take an elastic and stretch it between 2 chairs/desks/etc. to make a taut slingshot 12 inches across. Put a piece of tape 5 inches behind the slingshot as the point to pull back to each time.
- Set up books/pool noodles/etc. as bumpers to make a “track” in front of the slingshot.
- Set up measuring tape along the track and measure out a distance of 5 feet. Put a piece of tape at that mark. (Optional: set up a small cup tower at the mark with cutouts of eggs and pigs.)
- Figure out the different masses of the balls.
- Put each ball individually into the slingshot, pull it back to the tape, and let it go, starting the stopwatch once it is let go and stopping the stopwatch once it reaches the 5-feet mark.
- Repeat 3 times for each ball.
The results should demonstrate that the balls with less mass were able to travel the distance at a faster speed than the balls with more mass. This is why it is advantageous for the smaller male falcons to do the majority of the hunting.
- Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (2022). SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY / ENGINEERING Grades Pre-Kindergarten to 12 Massachusetts Curriculum Framework. https://www.doe.mass.edu/frameworks/current.html ↵
- Falcon Curriculum Common Core Standards mapping by Margaret Krone. Falcon Curriculum Lesson Plans by Lauren Weiss. © 2022 CC BY 4.0 ↵