Draft: this lesson was written with AI help and has not yet been read by a human editor.
1 What your class asks
This lesson asks you to compare the physical characteristics of various animals and to describe how different animals move. The museum links one old way of sorting animals; your class will bring the animals it studies and the characteristics that change as an animal grows. 1
Curriculum expectations, with their official codes
- B2.1 compare physical characteristics of various animals, including characteristics that are constant and those that change
- B2.2 describe the locomotion of various animals
2 The lesson
What makes two animals alike or different?
Choose two animals. List what is the same about their bodies and what is different, and mark which characteristics stay constant and which change.
How does each one move?
Describe how each animal moves its body to get from one place to another. Decide whether it walks, flies, swims or creeps, and what in its body helps it.
Go deeper
In his Book of Animals, al-Jahiz divides animals into those that walk, fly, swim or creep 2. He says he follows the names that are established and known among the people of this language 3. He notes that not everything that flies is a bird: locusts, bees and flies fly but are not called birds, and not everything that swims is a fish 3 4 5. He also says that wisdom may show more plainly in the fly, small as it is, than in the splendid horse 6 7.
Think about it
Al-Jahiz says locusts, bees and flies fly but are not called birds. What would you look at on an animal to decide whether it is a bird, and why?
Into the museum
- Kitab al-Hayawan: the book in seven parts, with chapters on pigeons, ants, snakes and many more animals.
- Al-Jahiz: the author, from Basra.
Try this
Read the card on Kitab al-Hayawan. Sort six animals you know into groups by how they move, and say why each belongs in its group.
3 Check yourself
Nothing here is marked or sent anywhere. It is for you.
In your own words: what does Kitab al-Hayawan (The Book of Animals) have to do with this lesson?
Compare with the card
Al-Jahiz sorts the animals. Before the kinds of animals, al-Jahiz sets out a division: animals walk, fly, swim or creep. He notes that not everything that flies on two wings is a bird, since locusts, bees and flies fly but are not called birds, and that predators armed with talons, such as the eagle, differ from those armed with beaks, such as vultures and crows. How would you sort the animals you know by how they move?
I can now
Notes
- 1. Ontario Ministry of Education, The Ontario Curriculum: Science and Technology, Grades 1–8 (2022)
- 2. al-Jahiz, Kitab al-Hayawan, vol. 1 (Dar al-Kutub al-'Ilmiyya, Beirut 2003, notes by Muhammad Basil 'Uyun al-Sud), p. 24
- 3. al-Jahiz, Kitab al-Hayawan, vol. 1 (Dar al-Kutub al-'Ilmiyya, Beirut 2003, notes by Muhammad Basil 'Uyun al-Sud), p. 25
- 4. al-Jahiz, Kitab al-Hayawan, vol. 1 (Dar al-Kutub al-'Ilmiyya, Beirut 2003, notes by Muhammad Basil 'Uyun al-Sud), p. 26
- 5. al-Jahiz, Kitab al-Hayawan, vol. 1 (Dar al-Kutub al-'Ilmiyya, Beirut 2003, notes by Muhammad Basil 'Uyun al-Sud), p. 27
- 6. al-Jahiz, Kitab al-Hayawan, vol. 3 (Dar al-Kutub al-'Ilmiyya, Beirut 2003, notes by Muhammad Basil 'Uyun al-Sud), p. 82
- 7. al-Jahiz, Kitab al-Hayawan, vol. 3 (Dar al-Kutub al-'Ilmiyya, Beirut 2003, notes by Muhammad Basil 'Uyun al-Sud), p. 83