Classroom Activities: Freshwater Habitats

These classroom activities are designed to complement the Freshwater Habitats topic on BrainPOP Jr.

Freshwater Habitat
If possible, take your students to a local freshwater pond, river, stream, or lake. On your trip, have your students bring their notebooks to write down their observations. What animals do they see? What plants and insects do they see? How do these living things rely on each other to live? How might the habitat change in the winter or summer? Have students write down their observations, draw pictures, or take photographs and create a class field guide for the area. You may also wish to do a scavenger hunt where you provide a list of pond animals or plants to observe and have your students find and study them.

Pond Mural

Create a mural of an empty pond habitat with the entire class. Students can then pick different pond animals or plants and draw them, cut them out, and add them to the mural. As the mural fills, students can see how much life is supported by one small pond. Students can conduct research at the library or on the Internet to learn more about their plant or animals. Then they can write captions on index cards to add to the mural, describing each animal’s adaptations to its habitat, or write riddles about their animal so that viewers can try to match the riddle with the animals depicted. You may want students to prepare a short presentation about their plant or animal so they can share what they know with the entire class. Use this opportunity to talk about the importance of ponds to living things and to people, and discuss different adaptations plants and animals have in order to survive in their environment.