Title
Activity: What is a Fish?
NGSS Science and Engineering Practices
NGSS Crosscutting Concepts
NGSS Disciplinary Core Ideas
Table of Contents
Materials
- Table 4.1
- Pen or pencil
Procedure
- Imagine that someone who has never seen a fish before asks you to teach him or her about fish. What would you tell them? Answer the question by writing down your own definition of what a fish is.
- Compare your definition with a group of your peers’ definitions and work together to refine your definition of a fish. Record your groups’ definition of a fish.
- Consider the examples of different animals in Table 4.1. For each example, answer the following questions in the table:
- Based on your groups’ definition, is this animal a fish?
- Do you want to change your fish definition based on this example, and if so, how?
- Use Table 4.1 to help you modify your written definition so that it is your best description of a fish.
- Look back over the organisms in the list. If you think they are fish, then make sure they fit your definition.
- If you think they are not fish, make sure the wording of your definition excludes them. For example, shrimp fit the definition of “an aquatic animal that breathes with gills.” Since a shrimp is not a fish, you would need to modify this definition to exclude shrimp.
Activity Questions
- As you developed your group definition of a fish in Step 2,
- what ideas did your group have that you had not thought of?
- how did you change your mind about your original definition?
- Describe how your definition of a fish changed as you worked through Table 4.1.
- Why do you think it is so challenging to define what a fish is?
- Why do you think that some animals are called fish when they are not really a fish, for example, jellyfish?
- Give your best definition of a fish.
