Animal Adaptations

Essential Question:  How do physical and behavioral traits help animals survive?

The students in Mrs. Kennedy's 2nd grade class had a blast with their animal adaptations unit! The students loved being able to look at pictures, watch videos, and learn facts about real animals that they are interested in. They integrated technology into this lesson to make the lessons come to life.

Using the website, "National Geographic for Kids," students found information on their chosen animal.  Click below to access the website.

To make accessing the website easier, students learned how to scan a QR Code that links to the website.  Students uses the app, "QRafter" to scan the QR Codes.  To practice scanning the codes, we used an activity created by "QR Queens" on Teachers Pay Teachers.  Each QR Code linked to a video or song about the adaptations that penguins have.  

Click here for the activity.  

Penguin Fun with QR Codes

Students used their iPad to scan the QR Code for their animal research.  This code connected to the “National Geographic for Kids” website.  

Research for this Animal Adaptations project was done on the iPad. Students found their animal and used a brainstorming sheet to record information for the following – Description, Habitat, Diet, and Adaptations.     

Recorded information

Digital Learning Day, March 13, 2015

Our project was recorded with the program "Digital Learning Day" on March 13.  Here is a tweet that we posted on Twitter to announce our project.

Massachusetts Standards for Science

 2.6. Adaptations of Living Things:  Give examples of how inherited characteristics may change over time as adaptations to changes in the environment that enable organisms to survive, e.g., shape of beak or feet, placement of eyes on head, length of neck, shape of teeth, color.