THE lesson plan

A virus mini-lesson for 6th graders:

Standard 5: Students will understand that microorganisms range from simple to complex, are found almost everywhere, and are both helpful and harmful.

Objective 2a: Develop a hypothesis for a question about microorganisms based on observations and prior knowledge.

Materials: Slide show

*students should have prior knowledge of what the 5 characteristics of living things are.

Prepare a short slide show explaining what viruses are, how they reproduce, etc. Any relevant information.
In groups of about four, have the students discuss whether or not viruses are alive, based on the information presented in the slide show, and what they know about the activities of viruses. After a few minutes, ask the groups to relate what they said and why. As a class, discuss the 5 characteristics of living things and whether or not viruses fulfill these requirements.

I actually did this activity with the sixth graders in my practicum. I searched the UEN website, and couldn't find any practical lesson plans for what I needed to be teaching. In fact, none of them directly addressed basic information about viruses, so I borrowed ideas from these websites:

http://askeric.org/Virtual/Lessons/Science/Biology/BIO0201.html

http://www.aestheticrealism.net/News-Lesson-Virus-SR.html

I also created the slide show I was going to use on google documents so that I could have access to it on my home computer, as well as on my cooperating teacher's computer. I think you can access it here, but I might have done this wrong, so we'll see:

Jade's virus slide show presentation