Biology

Animal Camouflage

Content Objectives:
Students will be able to:
Know that there are different individuals of the same species.

Process Objectives:
Students will be able to:
Identify and describe individual characteristics that give advantage to survival.

Assessment Strategies:
Survey
Teacher observation

After this activity, students will answer oral questions about the activity.

1.   How many did the students find of
each color?

2.   What was the most frequently found
color?

3.   Students will create their own hidden pictures showing animal camouflage after doing this activity.

Procedures:

1.   Discuss with students how protective coloring helps many animals hide from their predators. To show this, take green and orange colored macaroni and hide it in the grass. The teacher will have previously counted a certain number of each color.

2.   Stake out a small area for each group (6’x 6’). Know how many of each color macaroni you put in each area.

3.   Take students outside and have them find the macaroni in a given time period (one minute).

4.   Count how many of each color is found.

5.   Compare this with the original amount of macaroni that was in each area.
Discuss how this information would show how the animal’s color patterns help an animal survive in its habitat.        

Suggested Level:
Grades K-2

Standard Category:
3.3 - Biological Sciences

Materials:
Green and orange colored macaroni (dye your own box of macaroni using food coloring)

Variety of colored paper

Instructional Strategies:
Large group discussion

Partner activity

Guided questioning