Unit Plan 21 (Grade 4 Science): Sense Receptors
Model how animals detect information through sensory receptors, send signals to the brain, and respond with behaviors supporting safety and survival.
Focus: Model how animals detect information with sensory receptors, send it to the brain, and respond with behaviors.
Grade Level: 4
Subject Area: Science (Life Science • Modeling • Argumentation)
Total Unit Duration: 5 sessions (one week), 50–60 minutes per session
I. Introduction
In this unit, students explore how animals (including humans) sense and respond to the world. Using simple models, short readings, and demonstrations, they learn that eyes, ears, skin, nose, and tongue have receptors that detect specific kinds of information (light, sound, touch, chemicals). That information is sent to the brain, which processes it and sends signals to the body to respond. Students build and revise sense pathway models and explain everyday examples like flinching, turning toward a sound, or blinking.
Essential Questions
- How do animals receive information about their environment?
- What is the role of sense receptors and the brain in guiding behavior?
- How can we use a model to show the steps from stimulus to response?
- Why is it important for survival that senses, brain, and body work together?
II. Objectives and Standards
Learning Objectives — Students will be able to:
- Identify major sense organs (eyes, ears, skin, nose, tongue) and describe what type of information each detects.
- Use a model (diagram, flowchart, or physical model) to show how sensory receptors → brain → body response works for at least two examples.
- Explain, in student-friendly language, that the brain processes information from senses before the body responds.
- Describe how sensing and responding quickly can help an animal survive, grow, or stay safe.
- Create and explain a Sense Pathway Model for a chosen scenario, using correct vocabulary and clear steps.
Standards Alignment — 4th Grade (NGSS-Aligned)
- 4-LS1-2 — Use a model to describe that animals receive different types of information through their senses, process the information in their brain, and respond in different ways.
- Example: Model how eyes detect light from a moving object, the brain processes it, and the body responds by moving away or reaching toward it.
Success Criteria — Student Language
- I can name the five senses and what type of information each one detects.
- I can draw or build a model that shows information going from sense receptors to the brain and then to the body.
- I can explain how the brain helps decide how the body will respond.
- I can describe how a quick response to information (like pain, sound, or light) can keep an animal safe.
- I can use words like stimulus, receptor, brain, and response when I talk about my model.