Grade: 3 Subject: Science Date: October 22, 2008

Pre-Conference Comments:

Objectives:
- Students will be able to:
• Describe the life cycle of sea turtles
• Identify specific mortality factors related to sea turtles
• Make inferences about the effect of limiting factors on sea turtle
populations
• Make recommendations for ways to minimize the factors which
contribute to the possible extinction of sea turtles

Evaluation:
- Participation from students in activity
- Describe major stages of sea turtles life cycle, beginning with the egg
- Name at least four limiting factors that prevent sea turtles from reaching
the adult breeding stage
- Write a law that would help protect sea turtles. What would the law
include? Who would enforce it?

Materials and Aids:

- String or rope or traffic cones (for boundaries)
- Hula hoops for zones
- Turtles cards (100 cards per student
- Identity tags for limiting factors
• YELLOW: On-land predators and factors [eggs and hatchlings]
• Raccoons, dogs, foxes, ghost crabs, gulls
• Dune buggies, human egg collectors, shoreline development
• BLUE: In-sea predators and factors
• Sharks, killer whales
• Entanglement in fishing gear, eating plastic litter, illegal
killing by humans
- Year cards (4, 10 yrs) (PINK)
- Container/bag for mortality zone

C.E.L.’s:
- Communication: students are going to have to discuss the meaning on
Extinction and Endangered; discuss the food chain, life cycle of a turtle
and factors that may endanger/extinct species
 - Critical and Creative Thinking: how can we help or prevent endangered
animals

Presentation
Set:
- Discuss as a class what Endangered means (slowly dieing out) and
Extinct (disappear forever)
- Discuss what factors may cause animals to become endangered or
extinct
• People have moved onto their land-development
(destroy habitat)
• People have dumped poisons into the animals
water (destroy habitat)
• Hunters have killed too many
• Some don’t have enough babies
• Predator attack
• Many animals get tangled in floating plastic bags
• Vacationers/tourists-disturb animals and harm
wildlife
• Vehicles and factories create waste/pollution
• Some factories dump pollution into rivers hat
poison fish, which poison the birds that eat them.
• Crop spraying kills insects but may also kill
harmless animals
• Every time a species becomes extinct, part of the food
chain/circle of life is broken
• All animals deserve to live!
- Discuss rules of activity:
- Set up the playing field as shown. The “dead turtle”
container (wastebasket) is to be placed in the mortality zone.
- Divide the class into two groups. Half the students will
represent a population of turtles that hatch in a single nest. The other half
of the students will be predators or other limiting factors to the turtle
population.
- TURTLES – give each student who represents a
population of sea turtles a packed of 100 baby turtle cards (32 cards per
sheet) – can be substituted with other objects.
- LIMITING FACTORS – give each student who represents
a predator or other limiting factor a tag that designates what threat he or
she represents to the turtle. About half this group (or ¼ of the class)
should be on-land predators and limiting factors. The other half (¼ of the
class) should be in-sea predators and limiting factors
- Explain the playing field as follows:
• Nest Zone: the place where the eggs are laid and
hatch. This is the zone to which the surviving turtles will return in
 ten years. This is where the baby turtles hatch and begin their
journey to the sea.
• Beach Zone: the zone the hatchlings must cross
to get to the sea. It is a place of high predation and other limiting
factors.
• Sea Zone: the area where the turtles must mature
for a period of ten years before returning to nest.
• Year Zones: the two zones that the turtles must
visit to get the year cards necessary to “mature” to ten years of age.
One card is awarded for each one-way trip between the zones.
During the trip between the zones the turtles are vulnerable to
predators and other limiting factors. Turtles are safe from other
limiting factors when they are inside either year zone.
• Sea Grass Zones: places where the turtles are
safe until they reach four years of age. At that age they are too large
to hide from predators.
• Mortality Zone: the place where the mortality
container is kept (it prevents the turtle cards from getting scattered).
- Rules:
• Turtles must hatch, cross the beach, spend ten
years in the open sea, and return to the nest area to reproduce
• The turtles must survive the limiting factors they
encounter. Limiting factors cost the turtles a specific number of their
original 100 turtle cards. The penalties are as follows:
• Students who are limiting factors must obey the
following rules:
• Any turtle that loses all 100 turtle cards is dead
and must go to the beach zone and become a condominium. If the
condominiums (sitting side by side) eventually block access to the
nesting site, the remaining turtles die without reproducing and
starting the nest cycle.
• The game is over when all the turtles have
returned to the nest area or are dead.
- Review the rules two time to make sure the students understand
their roles and the procedures.

Development:
- Become endangered sea turtles and limiting factors and conduct
the activity!

Closure:
- discuss the result of the activity (high mortality of turtles,
factors that limit survival)
 • If there are many species of lions, for example,
why would we want to preserve a specific species? (ex-The Indian
Lion or Barbary Lion)
- Some natural factors cannot be changed (ex-food change)
- What would happen if all the turtles survived?
(overabundance –many animals produce more young than will survive,
serving as food for other species)
- What can we do to help endangered animals? (Support
WWF, lower poaching, create laws to protect, etc. – these are successful to
help save animal species)
• Nature preserves – no building or hunting; park
managers make sure animals are safe; in large preserves there are
helicopters to count the animals from above
• Some endangered species are in zoos so scientists
can study them; helps to breed (‘captive breeding’); preserve the few
that are left; one day it may be safe to move them back to the wild
- Discuss the life cycle of sea turtles

Adaptive Dimension:
- ESL Student: since there will be two teams (turtles and factors) it may be
easier for him to be on the ‘factors’ team so he just has to tag people and
his team will be able to help him easier. If he’s on the ‘turtles’ team one of
his team members might be able to run with him so it’s easier to follow the
game. There are also diagrams available of the game field, so hopefully
that will also help

- Non-readers: everything will revolve around discussion and class

participations. The game field diagrams may also help this student

Professional Development
Target:
- class participation
- call on everyone throughout the discussion but without putting someone
on the spot

How I plan to achieve my target:

- Keep track of who I call on so I have that information for next time, who I
tend to call on the most

Anticipated Outcome:
- Everyone will be called on for an answer and the activity and discussion
will work

Resources:
- Project Wild: “Turtle Hurdle”
 - Animals at Risk by Lydia Bailey
- Animals in Danger by Janine Amos

Comments:
Questions:

• What kind of wildlife might you see on a vacation? (Bears, deer, squirrels,
ducks, owls, etc.)

• What do you do with the wildlife? (Feed it, pet it, etc.)

• What should you do to protect them? (keep your distance- don’t pet
or feed, follow laws that protect them, help the environment, kept their
habitat clean, avoid destroying their habitat-developing land, don’t harm
their young, etc.)