Unit Plan 15 (Grade 1 Science): Human Care & Needs

Focus: Connect human caretaking behaviors (feeding, safety, warmth/shelter, teaching, and communication) to patterns of care seen in animals, using evidence from texts and media to explain how these behaviors help offspring survive.

Grade Level: 1

Subject Area: Science (Life Science • Patterns • Behavior)

Total Unit Duration: 5 sessions (one week), 30–45 minutes per session

I. Introduction

In this unit, students connect what they learned about animal families to their own lives by studying human care and basic needs. Through read-alouds, pictures, and simple classroom scenarios, students identify how caregivers help children survive by providing food, water, shelter, warmth, safety, and learning. They compare these caretaking behaviors to the patterns of care they observed in animals, noticing that many care categories are the same even when the actions look different.

Across the week, students collect evidence from media and classroom discussions to build the idea that care behaviors support survival by meeting needs and teaching skills. The unit ends with a Human Care Pattern Chart + Mini-Claim, where students explain one care pattern and support it with examples from both humans and animals.

Essential Questions

• What do humans need to survive and grow?
• What caretaking behaviors help humans meet those needs?
• How are human caretaking behaviors similar to patterns of care in animals?
• How can we use evidence from texts and media to explain patterns of care?

II. Objectives and Standards

Learning Objectives — Students will be able to:

1. Identify basic human needs (food, water, shelter, warmth, safety, care).
2. Describe caregiver behaviors that help meet those needs (feed, protect, warm/shelter, teach, communicate).
3. Compare human caregiving examples to animal caregiving examples to find shared patterns.
4. Use evidence from texts/media to support a claim about a care pattern that helps offspring survive.
5. Create a Human Care Pattern Chart + Mini-Claim linking human and animal care patterns.

Standards Alignment — Grade 1 (NGSS-Aligned)

• 1-LS1-2 — Read texts and use media to determine patterns in behavior of parents and offspring that help offspring survive.
  • Example: Compare caregiving behaviors across humans and animals to identify repeated care patterns (feeding, protection, teaching).

Success Criteria — Student Language

• I can name things humans need to survive (like food, water, and shelter).
• I can describe ways caregivers help children meet those needs.
• I can compare human care to animal care and find a pattern.
• I can use evidence from what I read or watched to support my idea.
• I can make a chart and a short claim about a care pattern that helps offspring survive.