{"id":26598,"date":"2026-03-19T12:06:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T19:06:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/plato-philosophy.org\/?post_type=teachertoolkit&#038;p=26598"},"modified":"2026-03-19T12:06:55","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T19:06:55","slug":"life-cycles","status":"publish","type":"teachertoolkit","link":"https:\/\/plato-philosophy.org\/teachertoolkit\/life-cycles\/","title":{"rendered":"Life Cycles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Notes on the documents in the Resource tab<\/h5>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Discussion Question Slips: print one sided in order to cut cleanly<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Independent Thinking Note-Taker: print two sided to keep things orderly<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Introduction&nbsp;<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Introduce the concept of \u201clife cycles\u201d to the class, highlighting that even though there are differences in the life cycles of various species, the general steps of <em>birth, growth, reproduction, and death<\/em> are involved in all living things\u2019 life cycles.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>You can use <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=PqzF4-w7bG8\">this catchy animated song<\/a> (though it leaves out death) or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=njG-A-NcflY\">this informative video<\/a> to introduce the topic. However, this philosophy lesson will be more successful if the students have already learned about life cycles prior to engaging in this.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Independent + Collaborative Thinking&nbsp;<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Purpose:<\/span> The structure of this lesson is intended to help students develop their independent thinking skills and apply these products towards a subsequent collaborative inquiry. In other words, for lots of philosophical questions, they are first<em> <\/em>encouraged to silently think and respond in writing to philosophical questions before contributing to a community of inquiry about the question.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Set up:<\/span> (prior to the lesson):\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Cut up the questions into individual strips and place them into a bowl. (see \u201cResources\u201d for these slips)\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Make sure every student has a copy of the 2-sided worksheet (and a pencil) (see resources) to jot their initial independent thoughts.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Steps:<\/span>\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Choose one student to come up and pick a question from the bowl for the class to think about. Write the question on the board or show it under a document camera, if you have one.\u00a0\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Recommendation: For more advanced classes, you can have the students come up with their own philosophical questions to put in the bowl. This should only be done with classes that have previously successfully practiced developing philosophical questions to a novel topic.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Give the class 3 minutes of silent thinking and writing time. Encourage students to think about the question for 30 seconds-1 minute before picking up their pencil to write. Ideally, pencils are moving until the 3 minutes are up.\u00a0\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Note:<\/span> This might be a challenge for some students. It might be helpful to model this process for a different question yourself before getting them started on this independent thinking process.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Facilitate a community of inquiry discussion for this question, having students respond by following respectful habits of discussion.\u00a0\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Recommendation:<\/span> While all the students came up with their own independent thoughts, encourage students to consider how their own independent thoughts connect with other people\u2019s independent thoughts.\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>(This can be done by having students identify whose points of view they agree with, disagree with, or partially agree with when they are sharing their own thoughts.)\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>(If the students are struggling to do this themselves, prompt them with questions like \u201cWho said something similar to Sally?\u201d or \u201cWho thinks something a little different?\u201d and having them expand on each other in this way.)\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Once the discussion reaches a reasonable conclusion, repeat by having a new student pick a question from the bowl.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Notes on the documents in the Resource tab Introduction&nbsp; Introduce the concept of \u201clife cycles\u201d to the class, highlighting that even though there are differences in the life cycles of various species, the general steps of birth, growth, reproduction, and death are involved in all living things\u2019 life cycles.&nbsp; Independent + Collaborative Thinking&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":26599,"template":"","toolkitcategory":[759,33],"gradelevel":[47,46],"topics":[266,633,815],"class_list":["post-26598","teachertoolkit","type-teachertoolkit","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","toolkitcategory-philosophy-of-science","toolkitcategory-science","gradelevel-middle-school","gradelevel-primary-elementary","topics-animal-rights","topics-biology","topics-plants"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - 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