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African Adventure Safari: A 3-5, Life Science Project
Student naturalists help safari guests learn about diversity, interdependence, and wonder of life in the African wild. You may want to print this page as you view the entire African Adventure Safari Unit Plan. 

Student-Centered 
This project is made relevant to students’ lives by asking the Essential Question: What is the price of life? Students write a newsletter, investigate the natural history of an animal, take the perspective of that animal, and create a slideshow of their findings.

Alignment with Standards
Project work is central to the curriculum. The topic of organisms and their environment is often part of the science curriculum in middle - upper primary and addresses standards. It involves key science processes of identifying and understanding relationships between African animals and their environment.

Important Questions
The Essential Question, What is the price of life? is an intriguing question and elevates the thinking beyond the classroom. The Unit Questions help make the unit relevant to students’ lives and connect new content to what they already know. Content Questions such as What do African animals need to survive?, prompts students to think about relevant facts and information that lead to the higher level questions. The Essential Question is posed periodically throughout the unit, and students are given many opportunities to discuss and reflect on it, individually, in pairs, and with the larger group. This not only gives the students opportunities to think about the content at higher-levels but gives teachers information on the students’ understanding of the content and ways in which they can direct and redirect their teaching. 

Multiple and Ongoing Assessments
Assessment is embedded throughout the unit with informal assessments as the class creates lists, begins a K-W-L chart, and has discussions around the unit topic and the Curriculum-Framing Questions. These activities give the teacher a sense of how much the students already know about the topic and how much learning needs to take place to reach unit objectives. Students also create individual K-W-L charts and research packets, allowing the teacher an opportunity to assess individual learning. The teacher assesses the final product with the project rubric. Students manage their work on the field guide with the same rubric and a checklist. At the end of the unit students write a follow-up paragraph or reflection essay about the Essential Question.

Authentic Work
The students make real-world connections through the Essential Question, which asks them to make connections to their life and to that of an animal’s. Students “become” their animal and create their presentations from the animal’s point of view. The letter home builds a home-to-school connection, while students make ties to the community and beyond the classroom by creating a field guide, multimedia presentation, and Web site focused on the Content Question: How are living things connected in their habitat and in what ways do they need each other to survive?

Demonstrations of Learning
Students complete several products: a multimedia presentation that will be a virtual safari, a field guide distributed at the safari tour, and a Web site. The products are intrinsically engaging and authentic to the task.


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