4th grade · Science · Unit 9 of 14
Sense & Respond
How living things react
What your child practices
How people, animals and plants sense and respond to their environment: the nervous system, reflexes, special animal senses and plant responses to light, gravity and touch.
Alabama Course of Study content standard: 4.9 · how animals take in information through their senses and respond
How we explain it
Children can open this short lesson before they practice.
- Your senses notice things: eyes, ears, nose, tongue and skin.
- Nerves carry a message to your brain. Your brain decides, then your muscles move.
- A reflex is extra fast: the message goes to your spinal cord and straight back.
- Some animals have special senses, like bats hearing echoes or sharks sensing electric signals.
Example: You smell smoke. What happens first? Something must notice the smoke before your brain can act. Your nose senses the smell, then nerves carry the message to your brain. Answer: your nose senses the smoke
Sense & Respond in Alabama
In the Alabama Course of Study, this is unit 9 of 14 in 4th grade Science, after Adaptations & Habitats and before Weather and the Water Cycle.
Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.
Sample questions
A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.
Question 1
The school bell rings. Put the steps of your response in order.
- 🏃Your muscles move you to line up
- 👂Your ears sense the sound
- 🧠Your brain decides what to do
- ⚡Nerves carry a message to your brain
Your ears sense the sound → Nerves carry a message to your brain → Your brain decides what to do → Your muscles move you to line up
Hint: Your senses notice first. Nerves carry the message to your brain, your brain decides, then your muscles move.
Question 2
Many trees drop their leaves in autumn. What are they responding to?
🍂- Shorter days and colder weather
- People raking the yard
- Birds singing in the branches
- Longer, warmer days
Shorter days and colder weather
Hint: When days get shorter and colder, many trees drop their leaves to save water and energy for winter.
Question 3
Some snakes, like rattlesnakes, can find a mouse in the dark. What do they sense?
🐍- 🔥the mouse's body heat
- 🔊echoes from their calls
- 🌙moonlight on the mouse
- 🎨the mouse's colors
🔥 the mouse's body heat
Hint: Rattlesnakes have special pits on their faces that sense heat from warm animals.
Question 4
Who is responding: a plant or an animal? Tap an item, then tap its basket.
Sort into: 🪴 plant · 🐾 animal
- 🐈cat's pupils shrink in bright light
- 🌱roots grow down into the soil
- 🐕dog wags its tail when you get home
- 🪟stem bends toward a sunny window
- 🦇bat hibernates in a cave
- 🍂tree drops its leaves in autumn
🪴 plant: roots grow down into the soil, stem bends toward a sunny window, tree drops its leaves in autumn · 🐾 animal: cat's pupils shrink in bright light, dog wags its tail when you get home, bat hibernates in a cave
Hint: Plants respond slowly, by growing, bending or dropping leaves. Animals can move their whole bodies, change their fur, or sleep through winter.
Question 5
Something in the environment that a living thing reacts to is called a…
📢- stimulus
- fossil
- habitat
- response
stimulus
Hint: A stimulus is what you sense (like a loud noise). A response is what you do about it (like jumping).
Question 6
Your nervous system is made of your brain, your spinal cord and your…
🧠- nerves
- muscles
- teeth
- bones
nerves
Hint: Nerves are like wires that carry messages between your body and your brain.