Phenomenon: Buzz Pollination

Contributor
Smithsonian Channel
Type Category
Instructional Materials
Types
Phenomenon
Note
This resource, vetted by NSTA curators, is provided to teachers along with suggested modifications to make it more in line with the vision of the NGSS. While not considered to be "fully aligned," the resources and expert recommendations provide teachers with concrete examples and expert guidance using the EQuIP rubric to adapted existing resources. Read more here.

Reviews

Description

Buzz pollination is a special technique that bumbles use to dislodge pollen. This is a specialized function of the bumble bees buzzing and is needed for spreading pollen between potatoes, tomatoes, and blueberries. The video has beautiful camera work, and is one minute and thirty-nine seconds.

Intended Audience

Educator and learner
Educational Level
  • Grade 2
Language
English
Access Restrictions

Free access - The right to view and/or download material without financial, registration, or excessive advertising barriers.

Performance Expectations

2-LS2-2 Develop a simple model that mimics the function of an animal in dispersing seeds or pollinating plants.

Clarification Statement: none

Assessment Boundary: none

This resource was not designed to build towards this performance expectation, but can be used to build towards it using the suggestions provided below.

Comments about Including the Performance Expectation
This is a phenomenon that relates to PE 2-LS2-2 and would serve as an anchoring phenomenon about bees or insects that pollinate using specialized structures that serve a function. The phenomenon is an interesting one because is relates to plants the students may have grown and certainly have eaten.

Science and Engineering Practices

This resource was not designed to build towards this science and engineering practice, but can be used to build towards it using the suggestions provided below.

Comments about Including the Science and Engineering Practice
The teacher would need to build a series of investigations to enable students to collaboratively develop conceptual models or objects that help explain this phenomenon. This anchoring phenomenon would accompany many experiences that explore flowers structures, their pollen, and insects’ specialized structures.

Disciplinary Core Ideas

This resource is explicitly designed to build towards this disciplinary core idea.

Comments about Including the Disciplinary Core Idea
This phenomenon fully addresses the Disciplinary Core Idea.

Crosscutting Concepts

This resource was not designed to build towards this crosscutting concept, but can be used to build towards it using the suggestions provided below.

Comments about Including the Crosscutting Concept
The bumblebee has specifically shaped structures on its legs and abdomen, which are referenced in the video, but the phenomenon is related to the buzzing of the bee; and the movement of the wings that allow it to make the buzzing sound.

Resource Quality

  • Alignment to the Dimensions of the NGSS: The phenomenon addresses the Disciplinary Core Idea well and uses a placed-based, and engaging context which can be built on to motivate deepening science understanding. It is observable to students, understandable and thought provoking.

  • Instructional Supports: The phenomenon is meant to be an anchoring event for a larger unit on pollinators, and how plants and animals are interdependent for survival. Students would have to engage in a number of investigations with flowers and with insects to explain this relationship and how specialized structures are involved.

  • Monitoring Student Progress: For informal assessment, students might write and draw their thinking about how the bees have special structures that help the plant. The teacher could review the writing (a beginning explanation) and the picture (a beginning model) over time to gauge progress in meeting the Performance Explanation.

  • Quality of Technological Interactivity: This is high quality video of an anchoring phenomenon that suggests the Performance Expectation in an engaging and clear manner.