B2.1: Describe habitats as areas that provide organisms, including plants…
Describe habitats as areas that provide organisms, including plants and animals, with the necessities of life, and identify ways in which a local habitat provides these necessities. (sealed jar as a habitat).
The Ontario Science and Technology, Grades 1–8 outcome B2.1 (Life Systems) for Grade 4 says: “Describe habitats as areas that provide organisms, including plants and animals, with the necessities of life, and identify ways in which a local habitat provides these necessities. (sealed jar as a habitat).” This Fieldbook unit teaches it hands-on, with everyday materials and a printable teacher guide and student sheet for every lesson. Official wording: Ontario Science and Technology, Grades 1–8.
Our Living Planet Grade 4
Air, water, land and living things, and how each one depends on the others. Students build a sealed jar ecosystem to keep for a month and catch the water cycle in a bag on the window.
- Can a jar keep itself alive? 50–60 min to build, then 5 min check-ins twice a week for 4 weeks, and a 30 min Reveal and Act
Each team builds a small world of soil, water, air and plants inside a clear jar, seals it, and keeps an observation log for four weeks beside an open jar built the same way. Students explain how water and air are used again and again inside the sealed jar, and why it still needs light from outside.
- Where does rain come from? 45–60 min, plus a 5 min look later the same day or the next morning
Students tape a zip-top bag of blue water to a sunny window and another to a shady wall, and catch a cold cup 'sweating' in the room. They follow the water from the bottom of the bag to the clear drops at the top, and explain how the Sun, air and clouds bring rain back down.
Printable practice for B2.1
These pages practise a closely related idea; the match to B2.1 is partial.
- Our Living Planet workbook included with the unit
1 word wall, 1 English-support page, 1 practice page, 1 reading, 1 unit review, 1 unit test, with answer keys.
- Food Webs: Who Eats Whom? workbook included with the unit
3 practice pages, 3 readings, 2 English-support pages, 1 word wall, 1 unit review, 1 unit test, with answer keys.
Need just this outcome? Build a custom pack from these pages, with its answer key, in about a minute. Custom packs come with All-access and school licences.
Compared with NGSS: 5-LS2-1 (partial).
More Ontario Grade 4 science outcomes we teach
Every Ontario Grade 4 science curriculum outcome we teach
Every unit matched to Ontario's curriculum · All places and curricula
Three full lessons, free
Make a free account and download any three Fieldbook lessons as printable PDFs. No card needed.