Is This a House for a Hermit Crab?

Students will:

• Understand design thinking

• Understand empathy

• Be able to have the knowledge of habitats design thinking to create a house for hermit crab or another animal.

Vocabulary Words:

1. Design Thinking: Design thinking is a process for developing solutions to simple and complex problems.

2. Empathy: Empathy is to learn and understand; to be in their shoes.

3. Define: Define means to identify the issue/problem and solution based on needs and insight.

4. Inspiration: Inspiration is your why; source of interest, idea, question.

5. Ideate: To ideate/ create means to brainstorm and come up with creative ideas/solutions.

6. Prototype: Prototype is a representation of one or more of your ideas; draft or iteration.

7. Test: Test means to try your idea/solution for feedback; find out what worked and what didn't.

8. Refine: Refine means to fix and then go back to make changes (if necessary).

Science Vocab

• Living things: Living things are things that are alive.

• Non-living things: Non-living things are things that are not alive

• Surroundings: surroundings are the things that are around where the animal or plant lives

• Survival: Survival is the things that the plant or animal have to have to survive (food, water, shelter, and air)

• Shelter: Shelter is the place that protects the animal when it sleeps or where lives (tree, cave, coral).

• Habitat: A habitat is a place where an animal lives.

1. Science Concepts:

   • What do animals need to survive? food, air, water, shelter and the ability to adapt to environmental changes

   • What happens if an animal or plant's habitat changes and then cannot leave? It can adapt or if it does not adapt, it will die

   • Camouflage is when an animal is able to hide from its enemies by blending into its surroundings

   • What causes changes to habitats? Weather (season to season), fire and humans (pollution)

2. Habitat Quizlet

To prepare for this lesson:

• Some possible items needed:

  • Cardboard
  • Straws/ Strawbees
  • Popsicle sticks
  • Pipe cleaners
  • Glue/scissors/markers/tape
  • Yarn
  • Construction paper
  • Legos
  • Pom poms

• Watch video on Design Thinking.

• The teacher may want to use the Design Thinking template. 

• Read, Is this a House For Hermit Crab. Story centers around hermit crab looking for a shell that fits him best. 

  • Here is a video of the book being read with the illustrations. 

• Things to consider:

  • Time- this will take around 45 minutes -1 hour. If broken into stations, you could do this for a week.

  • Do you want students to work in pairs or groups of three? Groups past three students are not recommended. 

  • Is this whole group or a station? 

  • If it is a station, it is recommended that you explain design thinking and lesson as a whole before sending the students to the stations. 

  • Will you assign an animal, or let students choose or have them design house for a hermit crab. 

  • How do you want students to share out projects?

    • Flipgrid? SeeSaw? Present to class? 

See the Accommodations Page and Charts on the 21things4students website in the Teacher Resources. 

Directions for this activity:

1. Play the video or read the story to the  students:
2. Discuss Design Thinking
   1. What is it?
   2. Talk about the Components of Design thinking.
   3. The teacher says to the students, "Today, we will be making a home for ____________"

3. Show Design Thinking template to the students if they are going to use it. 

4. Go over the ideas with the students. A good rule of thumb is to create a design thinking example for students as you go.

   1. Things to consider for animals: habitat, climate

   2. Decide who you are creating a house for? 

   3. Decide what functions you want for the house.

   4. Use the design thinking template if applicable

Different options for assessing the students:

• Observations
• Check for understanding
• Students can reflect on the project using this document. 
• Students can also share out on SEESAW, Google Classroom, Flipgrid or Schoology.
• Design thinking template