Planning the inquiry

1. What is our purpose? Class/grade: 4th Grade Age group: 9-10

To inquire into the following:
School: MIS
 Transdisciplinary theme: Sharing the Planet
Title: Ecosystem
An inquiry into rights and responsibilities in the struggle to share
finite resources with other people and with other living things; Teacher(s): Pushpita Nandy and Afsana Bithi
communities and the relationships within and between them; access
Date: 6th November – 20th December
to equal opportunities; peace and conflict resolution.
 Central idea Proposed duration: 48 hours over 6 weeks

Ecosystems rely on the interdependent balance of organisms within

systems.
Summative assessment task(s): 2. What do we want to learn?

What are the possible ways of assessing students’ understanding of
the central idea? What evidence, including student-initiated actions,
will we look for?
Task : Students will create a newspaper article to describe and explain how
a specific animal interacts with its ecosystem. Students can choose to write
as if they are a reporter studying the ecosystem. The article should include: a
description of the ecosystem, a description of how the animal interacts with
non-living thing and living things in its environment. They must include a
food chain, a food web, energy transfer, interactions with humans. Finally,
students will express the various viewpoints regarding our responsibility
towards the preservation of this animal and its environment.
Strategy : Performance Assessment Tools: Rubrics
What are the key concepts (form, function, causation, change, connection,
perspective, responsibility, reflection) to be emphasized within this inquiry?
Responsibility, Function, Causation
Related Concepts: ecosystems, transformation, habitats, behavior,
organisms
What lines of inquiry will define the scope of the inquiry into the central
idea?
- Ecosystem
- Interdependence within an ecosystem
- Human impact on ecosystems
What teacher questions/provocations will drive these inquiries?
Teacher Questions:
1. What is necessary to maintain a balanced ecosystem?
2. What factors can influence an ecosystem?
3. How do my actions impact the environment?
4. What would happen if one part of a food chain is missing?

Provocations:
1. Movie Clips: Finding Nemo
Identify the different relationships of interdependence among the animals
and their ecosystem.
2.Picture of ecosystems in Grasslands, polar, ocean, freshwater, rainforest, desert,
woodland forest.
3. How might we know what we have learned?
What are the possible ways of assessing students’ prior knowledge and
Planning
skills? the inquiry
What evidence will we look for?
1. Students rotate around the classroom, observing ecosystem posters, and writing and
drawing things they know about each ecosystem. (Grasslands, polar, ocean, freshwater,
rainforest, desert, woodland forest)
2. Groups of students are presented with pictures on the topic (on the floor), they record
words and phrases that describe the pictures. Students will categorize their notes and share
with the class.
What are the possible ways of assessing student learning in the context of
the lines of inquiry? What evidence will we look for?
4. How best might we learn?
What are the learning experiences suggested by the teacher and/or students to
encourage the students to engage with the inquiries and address the driving
questions?
1. Videos and PPT
2. In Science class students will be provided with Science textbook, and learn essential vocabulary for the
unit. They will come back as a class to formulate questions that they have about the unit focusing on the key
concepts that are highlighted in the unit. Students will learn about different ecosystems and their food
chains/food webs. They will complete an investigation with owl pellets to identify possible food chains.
They will study about how humans can affect the environment and how the environment affects us. They
will watch videos about human impact in different ecosystems (positive and negative). They will watch
Planet Earth videos.

Formative 1 4. Web of Life: Show how all parts of an ecosystem are interconnected using a ball .
Task : In groups, students will create a drawing of a food chain and food web for a chosen
ecosystem. 5. World map to locate and label different ecosystems
Strategy : Observation ; Tool : Rubric. 6. Draw and label food chains and food webs
Formative
Task : Students will be required to write a reflection about the interdependence of an 7. www.youtube.com / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPHqUxxyLsY
ecosystem. Ecosystem videos
Strategy : Constructive response ; Tool : Checklist
Formative 3 8. Movie Finding Nemo or The Lorax: Cause and effect of human impact
1. Students will be given an image of an ecosystem. How this ecosystem might be affected by 9. Descriptive Paragraph - Students pretend to be a particular animal in their ecosystem. If you lived in a
human activity? ecosystem how would you survive? The first paragraph describes the ecosystem, 1 example of a food chain
and 1 example of a food web. The second paragraph describes how humans are affecting your ecosystem
2. Students will reflect on how humans and other living things have affected and could
and the third paragraph tries to persuade people to conserve your ecosystem.
further affect an ecosystem. They will decide upon a few options that individuals can
take to conserve the ecosystem. 10. Students will discuss the issue of how human overfishing has affected the ocean ecosystem, laws that
have helped to stabilize the fish population and possible solutions.
Strategy : Open-ended ; Tool : Rubric. 11. Video: Dear Future Generation Sorry www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRLJscAlk1M
12. In Reading students will read the stories Ecology for kids and The Antarctic Journal. They will work
with the skills of sequence of event, cause and effect, and inferences.
What opportunities will occur for transdisciplinary skills development and for the
development of the attributes of the learner profile?
5. What resources need to be gathered?
Transdisciplinary Skills:
What people, places, audio-visual materials, related literature, music, art, Thinking skills – Students will have to research information from various sources in order to write their
computer software, etc, will be available? descriptive paragraph on an ecosystem.
Research – Students will use a variety of resources to learn about an ecosystem of their choice.
Science textbook, www.pearsonsuccessnet.com, www.youtube.com (Ecosystems videos),
www.studyjams.com (Ecosystems) http://www.psd1.org/Page/3672 , Social – Students will work collaboratively in groups to create food chains and food webs
Attitudes :
http://pbskids.org/plumlanding/games/ecosystem/jungle_jeopardy.html Caring : Students will develop this attitude from their understanding of the movie Finding Nemo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPHqUxxyLsY Empathy : Student will bred empathy for the other living things and environment while gathering
knowledge about various ecosystem.
‘Finding Nemo, “The Lorax” Videos
Learner Profile:
How will the classroom environment, local environment, and/or the Reflective - on their own behavior towards the environment
community be used to facilitate the inquiry? Librarian and library will be used Open-minded - as they learn about different perspectives on the environment and how we should
to research a specific habitat and a specific living organism; displays in rooms using
take care of it.
library resources, bulletin boards,
Principled: Taking responsibility for their actions and the consequences that accompany them.
Reflecting on the inquiry

6. To what extent did we achieve our purpose?

7. To what extent did we include the elements of the PYP?

How you could improve on the assessment task(s) so that you would have
a more accurate picture of each student’s understanding of the central
idea.

What was the evidence that connections were made between the central
idea and the transdisciplinary theme?

T
Reflecting on the inquiry

8. What student-initiated inquiries arose from the learning? 9. Teacher notes

Record a range of student-initiated inquiries and student questions and highlight any
that were incorporated into the teaching and learning.
At this point teachers should go back to box 2 “What do we want to learn?”
and highlight the teacher questions/provocations that were most effective in
driving the inquiries.

Teacher Questions:

What student-initiated actions arose from the learning?

Record student-initiated actions taken by individuals or groups showing their ability to
reflect, to choose and to act.

© International Baccalaureate Organization 2007