Title: Fish Behavior

Discipline: Life Science

Time: One 45 min class period

Ability: 7^th Grade

NJ Core Curriculum Content Standards:

Objective:

The students will be able to describe fish behavior based on their observations of the fish in their tanks. They will learn that different species behave differently.

Discussion:

Why would a scientist be interested in the behavior of an animal?

Why would it be important for you as students, monitoring your fish tanks, to understand the behavior of your fish?

Activity:

Students worked in groups of 4. They sat in front of the fish tank and observed the behavior of the fish for a 5 min period. The instructions for the role of each student and how behavior needed to be recorded are in the handout. Each group recorded behavior data for 2 different tanks. For homework the students graphed the data and then discussed with the teacher in the next class why some behaviors were expressed by some fish and not by others.

Assessment:

There was an early dismissal on the day we did this lesson, so each period was 10 min shorter than usual. We had originally planned that each students would observe three tanks but we cut it down to two tanks because of time constraints. This was a good lesson because it allowed the students to become intimate with the different species of fish in a calm and quiet manner. The students responded very well to the lesson and had many questions. Most of the students behaved well around the tanks and tried to move as little as possible when recording data so as to not disturb the fish. Both teachers felt that this lesson could be extended to another day to let the students collect more data on each and to have enough time to answer al their questions.