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Signal Stations in a Snowy Town

Model how a trained dog senses and responds to signals, then use winter-town observations to compare signal station designs.

Grade 4ScienceInteractive · Printable

Aligned to4-LS1-2

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What’s included

Single worksheet
Auto-graded online
1 NGSS standard
Printable answer key
14 questions
Classroom-ready

Details

Format: Interactive · Printable
Grade: Grade 4
Subject: Science
Question types: Fill in the blank, Multiple choice, Matching, Circle the answer, Sorting, Short answer

About this worksheet

What students practice

Students model how sensory information reaches the brain and leads to an animal's response.
Students use observations to compare designs that provide a trained dog with visual and sound signals.
Students distinguish observed responses from explanations about processing information in the brain.

How to use

Read the investigation together, then have students trace the information pathway and compare the station results. Discuss why receiving a signal does not guarantee a response.

Curriculum

NGSS standard covered

4-LS1-2

Model how animals take in information with their senses, process it in the brain and respond.

Preview

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Name Date

Signal Stations in a Snowy Town

Use a model and evidence to judge signals for a trained dog.

Build an Information Model

Read about the town's practice stations. Use the observations to think about sensing, processing information, and responding.

Pip's Winter Practice Route

In a snowy town, volunteers wanted a signal station for a fenced dog-training courtyard. The station would tell trained dogs to pause beside their handlers. Snowbanks sometimes hid part of the route, and wind sometimes made soft sounds hard to hear. The volunteers compared three designs before choosing one.

Anika and her dog, Pip, helped with the comparison. Pip had already practiced pausing when Anika showed a blue panel or rang a soft chime. Pip had never practiced with a green panel. Design A used only the blue panel. Design B used only the chime. Design C used both cues together.

The volunteers changed the station design. Within each location, they kept the dog, handler, starting distance, and three-second response time the same. Anika stayed beside Pip on a loose leash and gave no extra cue. A volunteer recorded whether Pip paused within three seconds. Each design had ten trials at each location, spread across several days. Pip had warm rest breaks, and the sounds were gentle.

At the open location, Pip could see the panel and hear the chime when each was used. Pip paused in nine trials with A, nine with B, and nine with C. Behind the snowbank, the panel was hidden, but the chime could still be heard. Those results appear in the graph. At the breezy location, the panel was visible, but the chime was too faint for Pip to hear. Pip paused in eight trials with A, one with B, and eight with C.

Animals' sense organs receive information from their surroundings and send messages to the brain. The brain can use memories along with incoming information to guide a response. Volunteers could observe Pip's movements, but they could not watch information being processed inside her brain. A pause alone did not show which cue Pip noticed.

Which sense organs first receive information from the blue panel?

A. Pip's ears
B. Pip's eyes
C. Pip's nose
D. Pip's paws

Select the two things a volunteer could directly observe, rather than explanations about what happened inside Pip's brain.

Pip stopped moving within three seconds.Pip's brain connected the sound with a memory.Pip turned her head toward the panel.Pip's brain recognized the practiced cue.

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