What's Alive

I loved the "whats alive" activity and how easily it is done compared to how much it can teach about the definition of life and life itself. In the beginning of the activity we were able to discuss within our groups what we think is alive and what we think is dead. We were also told to go outside and pick up a few things that we thought to be living. As we were making our list based on whats alive and whats dead, we chose the items that we thought to be obviously dead to place on this part of the list. Some of the things that we chose were the toothpick, the cotton ball, the rock, the popcorn kernel, etc. We then chose the remaining items to be placed under the category of whats alive. Some of the things that we chose for this group was the bean, and our two bugs and our plant that we picked up from outdoors.
After a couple weeks in the plastic baggie with a wet paper towel we were able to identify what really was alive compared to what was already dead. When we revealed our results we were mostly right but also wrong on a couple of our predictions. One thing that surprised us was that the corn kernel had begun to grow. This was one thing that we predicted to be no longer living, since we eat it as a snack! Another thing that my group was shocked about was that our two bugs were still living in this plastic bag for so long. The small worm type creature had made a habitat out of the dirt that was collected on the bottom of our now dead plant that we picked.
I feel that this project taught a lot about the value of life and how things can be so deceiving when you think you know an objects state. I was so surprised to see our two little bugs still crawling around after they were left in such  confined space with so little. This is something that I especially took note of and related it to us and the life we live. In todays world people go around thinking that we need so much to survive but this comes to show that really, we do not need that much at all.
I found this to be a truly neat project that could  be enjoyable for so many different age groups. A note has been taken to someday do this in my own class room!