Lesson Plan - Sweet News for Honeybees
Learning Objective
Students will understand why bees are important pollinators and learn about efforts to protect them from a deadly disease
Text Structure
Problem and Solution
Content-Area Connections
Life Science
Standards Correlations
CCSS: RI.3.1, RI.3.2, RI.3.3, RI.3.4, RI.3.5, RI.3.6, RI.3.7, RI.3.8, RI.3.10, L.3.4, SL.3.1
NGSS: From Molecules to Organisms
TEKS: Science 3.10
1. Preparing to Read
Watch a Video: Powerful Pollinators
Discuss: How do bees, butterflies, and some other animals help plants produce fruits and vegetables?
Preview Words to Know
Project the online vocabulary slideshow and introduce the Words to Know.
Set a Purpose for Reading
Point out the “As You Read” question. Have students identify details about how scientists give medicine to a hive.
2. Close-Reading Questions
1. Why does the author mention different foods at the beginning of the article? The author mentions apples, tomatoes, almonds, and broccoli as examples of foods that come from plants pollinated by bees. This helps show that bees are important.
(RI.3.5 AUTHOR’S PURPOSE)
2. What is the meaning of the word infected? What clues in the article help you figure it out? The word infected means having an illness or a disease. The phrases “caused by a germ” and “the disease can move quickly from hive to hive” provide clues.
(RI.3.4 WORD MEANING)
3. How did scientists deliver the vaccine’s protection to baby bees? Scientists delivered protection to baby bees by feeding the vaccine to worker bees, which then fed it to the queen bee. The queen bee passed the protection from the disease on to her babies.
(RI.3.3 SEQUENCE)
3. Skill Building
FEATURED SKILL: Build Vocabulary
Use the Skill Builder “Bee Basics” to have students use key vocabulary from the article in a crossword puzzle.
(RI.3.4 DOMAIN-SPECIFIC VOCABULARY)
