The Beagle Brigade
http://www.sciencenetlinks.com/lessons.cfm?DocID=435
A lesson plan for Grade 6 Science
About this resource
- Appropriate grades
- 6
- Subjects
- science (technology and innovation), thinking skills (information literacy, research skills)
- Provider
- American Association for the Advancement of Science
Legal
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In this lesson, students develop an understanding of animal behaviors and the interaction of innate abilities and learned behaviors. The Beagle Brigade is a team of beagles and their human handlers who inspect luggage at U.S. airports searching for agricultural products. They are part of the United States Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. After students discuss their knowledge of working dogs, they speculate about the types of tasks their dogs might be able to accomplish. Then, students follow the directions of the student E-sheet to read and answer questions from the USDA’s website about detector dogs. Upon completion of their investigation, students use what they have learned in the lesson and from these stories to write a fictional account about an encounter with a Beagle Brigade team at the airport. They can be as creative as they like, but their stories should include a description of how the beagle is able to detect illegal food products in passenger luggage. Science NetLinks provides student handouts, detailed instructions for completing the lesson, and links to helpful web resources.
North Carolina Curriculum Alignment
Science (2005)
Grade 6
- Goal 1: The learner will design and conduct investigations to demonstrate an understanding of scientific inquiry.
- Objective 1.01: Identify and create questions and hypotheses that can be answered through scientific investigations.
- Goal 7: The learner will conduct investigations and use technologies and information systems to build an understanding of population dynamics.
- Objective 7.01: Describe ways in which organisms interact with each other and with non-living parts of the environment:
- Coexistence/Cooperation/Competition.
- Symbiosis.
- Mutual dependence.
- Objective 7.01: Describe ways in which organisms interact with each other and with non-living parts of the environment:
