Creature Features

What do animals and plants need to survive? How do certain adaptations support these needs? Discover what it could look like to hand-pick adaptations and design the "perfect" underground scientist.

Grade level

Content area

Time required

Minimum of seven 40-minute sessions

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Kids look at insects in a jar

During this unit, students explore what animals and plants need to survive. They also closely examine how certain adaptations support these needs. For the culminating activity, students create a mashup that represents the adaptations they believe would be best suited for the success of a scientist working nearly one mile below the surface at the Sanford Underground Research Facility.

Note: students are encouraged to go outside to "explore" life in Lesson 2. Spring and Fall are likely to yield more observations of living things.

Creature Features-- The Needs of Living Things

Curriculum Standards

  • 1-LS1-1

    Design a solution to a human problem by mimicking how plants and/or animals use their external parts to help them survive, grow, and meet their needs.*

  • 1-LS1-2

    Read texts and use media to determine patterns in behavior of parents and offspring that help offspring survive. 


  • 2-LS4-1

    Make observations of plants and animals to compare the diversity of life in different habitats.

  • K-ESS3-1

    Use a model to represent the relationship between the needs of different plants or animals (including humans) and the places they live.

  • K-LS1-1

    Describe patterns of what plants and animals (including humans) need to survive.