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| Program Time: 1.5 hours (for all programs) |
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| The rocks speak to us by revealing Ohio's geologic past from ancient seas to massive glaciers. Students will learn the three different types of rocks and how each was formed together with discovering the forces that shaped our area. |
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Discover the difference between igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary rocks and how each was formed.
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Explain that rocks are made of one or more minerals. |
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Identify minerals by their characteristic properties. |
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Describe that most of the sedimentary rock layers formed in Ohio were formed in warm, shallow seas. |
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Observe and explore how fossils in Ohio's rocks provide evidence about animals and plants that lived long ago.
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Describe that in a chemical change, new substances are formed with different properties (e.g. iron in minerals changing to iron oxides). |
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Describe that in a physical change (e.g. state, shape, and size), the chemical properties of a substance remain unchanged. |
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Explore the chemical and physical changes that take place with rocks (e.g. large rocks break into small particles, and iron in rock is chemically changed to iron oxide or rust). |
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Identify and describe how freezing, thawing, and plant growth reshape the land surface by causing the weathering of rock. |
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Describe how wind, water and ice shape and reshape Earth's land surface by eroding rock and soil in some areas and depositing them in other areas producing characteristic landforms (e.g. glacial moraines). |
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| Students will learn that a forest community is a dynamic tapestry of several layers with numerous plant and animal interrelationships. They will discover many of these relationships while searching for life on the forest floor. |
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Explain the difference between a deciduous and coniferous forest.
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Identify common trees of Ohio's forests using a simple dichotomous key. |
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Explain that all natural communities are composed of producers, consumers, and decomposers while giving examples of each. |
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Describe the role of producers in the transfer of energy entering a forest ecosystem as sunlight to chemical energy through photosynthesis. |
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Trace the organization of simple food chains and food webs (e.g. producers, herbivores, carnivores, omnivores, decomposers). Explain how almost all kinds of animals' food can be traced back to plants. |
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Describe how a tree grows, including the process of photosynthesis and the function of each part (e.g. leaves, trunk, roots, flowers, and seeds). |
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Discover what animals inhabit a forest community by searching for animal signs and looking for organisms on the forest floor. |
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Describe how organisms interact with one another in various ways (e.g. squirrel-oak tree relationship). |
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| Students will discover the basic groups of animals while visiting the different communities found at Wolf Creek. We will be discussing the role of several common animals while searching for animal signs. |
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Classify the basic animal groups, including mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, and insects, according to their characteristics (e.g. body coverings and body structures).
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Investigate special adaptations of our native birds, including songbirds, waterfowl, woodpeckers, and raptors. |
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Discover life histories of Ohio's common animals while searching for their presence. Animal signs include nests, burrows, den sites, scat, insect galls and chewed twigs. |
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Summarize that animals can survive only in ecosystems in which their needs can be met (e.g. food, water, shelter, air, carrying capacity). Share that the different ecosystems or communities at Wolf Creek support the lives of different types of animals. |
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Explain how almost all kinds of animals' food can be traced back to plants. |
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Trace the organization of simple food chains and food webs (e.g. producers, herbivores, carnivores, omnivores, and decomposers). |
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Support how an animal's patterns of behavior are related to the nature of that animal's ecosystem, including the kinds and numbers of other animals present, the availability of food and resources, and the changing physical characteristics of the ecosystem. |
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| All over Ohio, abandoned farmland is in the process of becoming forest. Students will observe various stages of succession and learn about the numerous interrelationships in each of the communities. |
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Explain the concepts of biome, ecosystem, and community.
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Discover the stages of ecological succession in Ohio and classify the dominant plants growing in each stage. |
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Explore which animals are found in each community by searching for animal signs such as scat, chewed twigs, holes in the ground, and animal tracks. |
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Explain how almost all kinds of animals' food can be traced back to plants, and the plants in each community (e.g. old field, thicket, and forest) determine which animals are found in that community. |
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Describe how organisms within each community interact with one another in various ways (e.g. many plants depend on animals for carrying pollen or dispersing seeds). |
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Describe the role of producers in the transfer of energy entering ecosystems as sunlight to chemical energy through photosynthesis. |
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Trace the organization of simple food chains and food webs in a meadow or forest community (e.g. producers, herbivores, carnivores, omnivores, and decomposers). |
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Support how an organism's patterns of behavior are related to the nature of that organism's ecosystem, including the kinds and numbers of other organisms present, the availability of food and resources, and the changing physical characteristics of the ecosystem. |
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Analyze how all organisms, including humans, cause changes in their ecosystems and how these changes can be beneficial, neutral, or detrimental (e.g. people letting farmland become a forest over time, people introducing new species, squirrels burying nuts in an abandoned field). |
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| Ponds and wetlands are teeming with life from large fish and turtles to microscopic organisms. Students will explore these amazing communities both through the microscope and with nets (spring and fall). |
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Discover what animals live in a pond or wetland. Students will have the opportunity to search for macroinvertebrates in a pond using nets.
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Identify pond organisms by using a simple picture key. |
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Classify animals that interact with ponds and wetlands, including aquatic macroinvertebrates, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. Explain life histories of common representatives of each group found in Ohio. |
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Compare life cycles of pond organisms such as egg-tadpole-adult frog and egg-nymph-adult dragonfly. |
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Describe the role of producers in the transfer of energy entering a pond or wetland ecosystem as sunlight to chemical energy through photosynthesis. |
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Trace the organization of simple food chains and food webs in a pond or wetland ecosystem (e.g. producers, herbivores, carnivores, omnivores, decomposers). Explain how almost all kinds of animals' food can be traced to plants. |
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Discover and classify microorganisms found in a pond and wetland community by using microscopes. Explain that these microorganisms form the basis of the food chain in aquatic environments. |
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Explain the value of wetlands that include preventing flooding and erosion, filtering impurities from water, recharging groundwater, providing habitat and nurseries for numerous unique plants and animals, and human recreation. |
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