Today students brainstormed all the things they knew about sea shells. As a group they knew quite a lot including what sea shells are made of (calcium carbonate), who makes them (the organism does), and a little about size, shape, texture, and even distribution. Not many of them knew what the names of the sea shells were though. (Maria and Brooke figure out which shells are which)
Students were given a handout of black and white shell drawings, a bucket of numbered shells and asked to match the real thing with the sketches. In some cases, shells were easily matched and some students really had an eye for it. Some shells were a bit harder.After matching the drawings with the real shells, students then looked them up in field guides to try to identify what they were and how many shells they have. A variety of books were available and helpful for the students to use. In the photo to the left, Josh, Becca, Jay, Cassandra, and Chase are looking up the shells to figure out their common names. As I was helping Logan match the oyster with it's drawing, I told him to look at the ugly lumpy shell and match it with the ugly lumpy picture. He told me, "It's not ugly; it has undefined beauty." This is a quote to remember.
I went over the names of some of them and many of the students were correct. Nick was particularly speedy at identifying shells and looking them up. Some students found names more specific than what I was looking for or listed the scientific names.
Students will have a lot of review with these shells and there will be a lab practical and a test at the end of the unit on these shells and the other information learned in the Mollusc unit.
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