Unit 4 — Basic Needs of Living Things
Description
Students develop understanding of what plants and animals need to survive and the relationship between their needs and where they live. Students compare and contrast what plants and animals need to survive and the relationship between the needs of living things and where they live. The crosscutting concepts of patterns and systems and system models are called out as organizing concepts for these disciplinary core ideas. Students demonstrate grade-appropriate proficiency in developing and using models, analyzing and interpreting data, and engaging in argument from evidence. Students learn that plants need water and light, animals need food obtained from plants or other animals, and all living things need water. Students use models such as diagrams, drawings, physical replicas, dioramas, dramatizations, or storyboards to represent relationships between organisms and their environments. Students construct arguments with evidence for how plants and animals change their environment to meet their needs. This unit is based on K-LS1-1, K-ESS3-1, and K-ESS2-2.
Essential Questions
- How do plants and animals get the things that they need to live and grow?
- What do plants need to live and grow?
- What is the relationship between what plants need and where they live?
- How can plants change their habitat?
Learning Objectives
- Use observations to describe patterns of what plants and animals (including humans) need to survive.
- Use a model to represent the relationship between the needs of different plants and animals (including humans) and the places they live.
- Construct an argument supported by evidence for how plants and animals (including humans) can change the environment to meet their needs.
Supplemental Resources
- Where Do Polar Bears Live? (Read-Aloud Lesson) - Students identify characteristics allowing polar bears to survive in the Arctic
- Good Night and Where Do Polar Bears Live? (Paired Text activity on hibernation)
- The Needs of Living Things (OER) - Lesson plan for K-2 about plant and animal survival needs and habitats
- Living Things and Their Needs (OER) - Teacher guide with videos, reading resources, and student activity sheets
- How Do Living Things Interact (OER) - Unit plan about living things and environmental interactions
- Curious George: Paper Towel Plans (PBS video) - Shows students helping bean seeds sprout
- From Seed to Fruit (KET Everyday Learning video) - Cherry tomato plant life cycle in English and Spanish
- Think Garden: The Importance of Water (KET video) - Explores why plants need water in English and Spanish
- Think Garden: Plant Structure (KET video) - Examines roots, stems, leaves, flowers, seeds, and fruit
- Is It Alive? (PBS video) - Living vs. non-living sorting activity
- Live classroom plants for observing growth and care
- Chart paper for recording observations of plant and animal needs
- Picture cards of different plants and animals for sorting and matching
- Soil, water, and seeds for growing activities
- Printed images of different habitats for creating dioramas
Earth and Space Sciences
Life Sciences
Students engage in ELA literacy practices across all five science units. They ask and answer questions about key details in informational texts, participate in shared research and writing projects, compose informative and opinion pieces using drawing, dictating, and writing, add visual displays to descriptions, and use speaking and listening skills to seek information and clarify understanding in the context of science investigations.
Students apply mathematics practices and measurement standards throughout the science units. They reason abstractly and quantitatively, model with mathematics, use appropriate tools strategically, describe and compare measurable attributes of objects, classify and count objects into categories, and know number names and the count sequence to analyze and represent data from science investigations.
Formative Assessments
- Observe and use patterns in the natural world as evidence and to describe phenomena.
- Use observations (firsthand or from media) to describe patterns in what plants and animals need to survive.
- Observe that systems in the natural and designed world have parts that work together.
- Use a model to represent relationships between the needs of different plants and animals and the places they live.
- Construct an argument with evidence to support a claim about how plants and animals can change their environment to meet their needs.
Summative Assessment
Students create a poster to protect plants and animals in the rainforest from being affected by hotel development, or write a story from an animal's perspective moving to a new exhibit at the zoo.
Benchmark Assessment
— not configured —
Alternative Assessment
Students tell a story about an animal living on Mars that addresses its needs, or use physical characteristics of animals to match them to the appropriate habitat.
IEP (Individualized Education Program)
During observation and discussion activities, allow students to demonstrate understanding through oral responses, pointing, or drawing rather than written output. Provide visual supports such as picture cards showing the needs of plants and animals (water, light, food, shelter) to support processing and vocabulary development. When building models or creating the summative project, offer structured templates with image choices so students can focus on demonstrating their scientific thinking rather than production skills. A scribe or text-to-speech tool may support students who need assistance expressing their ideas during argument-building tasks.
Section 504
Provide preferential seating during direct instruction and whole-group observations to minimize distraction and support focus. Allow extended time for the summative project and any observation recording tasks, and offer a quiet workspace when available. Visual schedules and transition warnings can help students stay oriented during the varied activity formats in this unit.
ELL / MLL
Introduce and consistently reinforce key unit vocabulary — such as survive, shelter, habitat, needs, and environment — using picture cards, bilingual word walls, and real objects or photos whenever possible. Directions for observation tasks and the summative project should be given in simple, short sentences and paired with visual models of the expected outcome. Where possible, encourage students to discuss their ideas about plants and animals in their home language before sharing with the group, bridging prior knowledge to new English vocabulary.
At Risk (RTI)
Connect unit concepts to students' everyday experiences with living things — such as plants at home, pets, or animals seen in the neighborhood — to activate prior knowledge and build a meaningful entry point. Simplify observation tasks by focusing on one need at a time and using picture-supported recording tools so students can participate fully without being hindered by emergent literacy skills. Frequent check-ins during hands-on activities, along with consistent visual anchors in the classroom, will help students build confidence and consolidate understanding of core concepts.
Gifted & Talented
Encourage students to investigate how the needs of living things vary across very different habitats — such as a desert and an ocean — and to consider what would happen to an organism if one of its needs were not met in its environment. For the summative project, students can be challenged to develop a more complex argument by identifying multiple ways that plants or animals change their environment and the potential effects of those changes on other living things. Opportunities to observe and document changes in classroom plants over time, forming their own questions and predictions, can deepen engagement with scientific thinking beyond the foundational concepts.