Sessions

 

Session 1: What Is Life?

LESSON OBJECTIVES: 

Students will define adaption, biology, complex, environment, environmental, eukaryotes, evolution, evolve, extinction event, fossil fuel, fossils, gene, homeostasis, iridium, natural, organism, process, produce, prokaryotes, protein, selection, and survive.

Students will examine the Driving Question Notebook and Discussion Guide.

Students will review the vocabulary for this unit.

Students will complete and discuss their answers on the Vocabulary: Part 1 worksheet.

Students will watch and discuss "A Big History of Everything - H2"

HOMEWORK:

No Homework.

​

Session 2: The Origins of Life

LESSON OBJECTIVES: 

Students will gain an understanding of the relationship between different species, and see how we (humans) are related to other species.

Students will watch and discuss "Crash Course: The Origin of Life?"

HOMEWORK:

No Homework. 

 

Session 3: Life and Purpose

LESSON OBJECTIVES: 

Students will read, analyze and discuss "Life and Purpose" using the Three Close Reads method. 

Students will use claim testers to firm up their understanding of the differences between life and nonlife. 

Students will review Threshold 4 - Life

HOMEWORK:

No Homework

​

Session 4: Spontaneous Generation

LESSON OBJECTIVES: 

Students will review why something that occurs sometimes changes over time based on new evidence and new discoveries.

Students will evaluate the validity of three claims based on sound scientific understanding.

HOMEWORK:

No Homework

​

Session 5: How Life Began and Change

LESSON OBJECTIVES: 

Students will watch and discuss "How Life Began and Change" and "Mini Thresholds of Life".

Students will compare and contrast the mini-thresholds of life to the larger thresholds of increasing complexity that define the Big History story

Students will explore thresholds and how we can use the idea of thresholds to break other historical phenomena into logical pieces.

HOMEWORK:

Create a threshold card to represent a mini threshold of your life. 

​

Session 6: Life In All Its Forms

LESSON OBJECTIVES: 

Students will watch and discuss "Life in All It's Forms".

Students will interpret infographics about the similarities and differences between humans and other species.

Students will watch and discuss "Crash Course: Why The Evolutionary Epic Matters"

HOMEWORK:

No Homework

​

Session 7: Living in the Extremes of the Biosphere

LESSON OBJECTIVES: 

Students will describe what it might be like for humans to live in the extremes of the biosphere. 

Students will examine the Driving Question Notebook and Discussion Guide.

Students will review the vocabulary for this unit.

Students will complete and discuss their answers on the Vocabulary: Part 2 worksheet. 

HOMEWORK:

No Homework.

​

Session 8: Biosphere

LESSON OBJECTIVES: 

Students will read, analyze and discuss "What is the Biosphere" using the Three Close Reads method. 

Students will watch and discuss "How Do Earth and Life Interact?"

HOMEWORK:

No Homework

​

Session 9: A Year In the Life of a Species

Students watch and discuss "Why Do Animals Have Such Different Lifespans"

Students will examine, in depth, a species of animal that’s familiar to them and present their findings to the class

Students will read, analyze and discuss "Darwin, Evolution, and Faith" using the Three Close Reads method. 

HOMEWORK:

No Homework

​

Session 10: Darwin and DNA

LESSON OBJECTIVES: 

Students will read, analyze and discuss "National Geographic's Darwin's Voyages".

Students will interpret images and maps in order to extract information about Darwin’s trip to the Galapagos Islands.

Students will read, analyze and discuss "Crick, Watson, & Franklin" using the Three Close Reads method.

HOMEWORK:

No homework

​

Session 11: Timelines

LESSON OBJECTIVES: 

Students will watch and discuss "Codes - H2"

Students will add Darwin, Watson, Crick, and Franklin to their timelines, adding much of the same types of information that they added for the others on their timelines.

Students will review a student writing sample and analyze and then improve that sample. 

HOMEWORK:

Read Investigation 5 articles.

​

Session 12: Investigation 5

LESSON OBJECTIVES: 

Students will write a five- to six-paragraph essay. They will support their claims with logic and evidence and that they refer to the specific documents or sources from which they’re getting their information. Students will investigate some of the problems with Darwin’s theory and the changes in support and modification or extension of its fundamental principles since its publication.

HOMEWORK: 

No Homework

​

Session 13: Impacts

LESSON OBJECTIVES: 

Students will examine how a foreign body hitting the Earth could have a large-scale impact on life.

Students will watch and discuss "The Three Biggest Space Impacts Ever".

Students will read, analyze and discuss "Found: First Amino Acid on a Comet" using the Three Close Reads method.

HOMEWORK: 

No Homework

​

Session 14: The Chelyabinsk Meteor

LESSON OBJECTIVES: 

Students will analyze the impact of craters first-hand by creating models of what it would be like if a crater hit the Earth.

Students will watch and discuss "SciShow: The Chelyabinsk Meteor: What We Know"

Students will  finish writing their guidelines for NASA about what space objects should be monitored by the agency on a regular basis. Using their new knowledge of space impacts, they will revise and strengthen their prediction regarding the smallest thing that could hit Earth and cause an extinction event

HOMEWORK: 

No Homework

​

​