Integrated Polar Bear Unit

This unit was packed full of hands-on activities, my students had a blast with it! We integrated various subjects into this unit such as Science, Language Arts, Applied Design and Skills, and Arts Education. For language arts, we created these polar bear books that you see below. Students would learn about an aspect of polar bears (habitat, diet, life cycle, how they keep warm) and then get one of the pages to glue in their booklet (image 2). This image doesn’t show it, but students actually would trace one or two words from each page before adding them to their book. Once they did so, they would get a “token” that could be kept in the pocket of the page (hence the paper bag). I found this was a fun and creative way for students to demonstrate their learning and gave them motivation to do so because they really wanted to earn their tokens. I wish I had taken a photo of the students’ finished work but they were so excited to take them home that it slipped my mind!

Science Experiment

This experiment was done to show students how blubber helps polar bears stay warm while living in the harsh Arctic. Students placed both hands in plastic baggies and then put their hands into cold water. One bag was covered in vegetable shortening, acting as the blubber. My students found this to be very exciting and valuable to the lesson. They loved to talk about blubber after this hands-on experiment!

Art

We did this to celebrate the end of our unit! It was done by mixing shaving cream and glue to create “puffy” art. The students had a lot of fun with this one and made for some very cute polar bears!
This was another art lesson we did within this unit. Students were learning how polar bears care for their young, including maternity dens. Following the lesson, students created their own dens using these cut-outs, tissue paper, and paint! This really helped them to conceptualize an otherwise difficult concept, as there are many components to a maternity den!