- Welcome/Overview
- Content Notes
- Lesson and Activities
- Lesson 1-Living Systems-Where do we fit?
- Lesson 2- Explore Your "Wild" World!>
- Lesson 3- Building Food Chains and Food Webs>
- Lesson 4- Owls- A Mighty Predator
- Lesson 5- About Ecosystems>
- Lesson 6- We Are Explorers! (day1 of 2 lessons)>
- Lesson 7- We Are Explorers (day 2 of 2 lessons)
- Lesson 8-A Closer Look at Communities
- Lesson 9- What's in the Water?
- Lesson 10- Our Environment/Our World>
- Websites for Kids
- Books Used Throughout Lessons 1-10
- Assessment Page
Lesson 3- Building Food Chains and Food Webs
Objective:
Materials: Use Smart Board and Computer to view videos, 3rd Grade COWS, science journal to record observations/reflections, books, websites. (Be sure to set up websites to access on the class website or in a class folder a head of time.)
Lesson*:
Chain Reaction- Excellent website because it allows students to build a couple of different food chains and introduces what happens if the chain is broken and an animal is taken out of the food Chain. Interactive way for students to connect to the material.
Environmental Education for Kids(EEK) has a section dealing with habitats located all over the globe.Check out this location to study a desert habitat. The illustrations and photographs help illustrate the text.
EEk also has a great section called Critter Corner that will students to learn more about each animal in the food chain- where it sleeps, what it eats, what particular adaptations like camouflage, mimicry, or others the animals possess. Great way for students to connect to the content.
Kid's Corner- Food Chains-Producers and Consumers-Games- see reference section for more details about this website.
References:
*Lesson activities adapted sources listed in the Cycle of Life 1: Food Chain found on the Science Net Links Website, http://sciencenetlinks.com/lessons/cycle-of-life-1-food-chain/,Advancing Science Serving Society, 2003.
Also visited Bookish Ways in Math and Science. bookishways.blogspot.com/. A blog on teaching elementary math and science using children's literature. The blog also shares some great information on a variety of resources and how we can use them in lesson planning. Found many ideas to help teach ecosystems.
- Describe major water-related and dry-land ecosystems.
- Provide examples of animals and plants that live in each type of system
- Compare and Contrast water -related and dry-land ecosystems
- Define producers and consumers and begin to identify examples of each.
- Expected that students can infer that most food chains begin with a green plant.
Materials: Use Smart Board and Computer to view videos, 3rd Grade COWS, science journal to record observations/reflections, books, websites. (Be sure to set up websites to access on the class website or in a class folder a head of time.)
Lesson*:
- Read " Link Number one"- from page 4-7 in Pass the Energy Please by Barbara Shaw McKinney
- Discuss producers with students- Green plants on land and in the sea. Any plant that produces its own food is considered a producer. Think back to food chains that we have studied so far. the Cows that we eat. What do they eat? Go through a few more examples. What can we infer? What do many food chains start with?
- Read pages 12-15 of Pass the Energy Please
- Ask students to help you draw a terrestrial food chain using the animals in the book- "A Chain of Four on the Meadow Floor."
- View Video on National Geographic on Assignment Video footage on humpback whale-
- Discuss this habitat/climate/What does whale feed on?
- Students draw Humpback's food chain in Science Journals.
- Discuss how the habitat in the reading, "A Chain of Four on the Meadow Floor" is different from the habitat in the Video.
- Draw a Venn Diagram to highlight the differences between Aquatic and Terrestrial Food Chains
- Students engage by completing similar Venn Diagram in their Science Journal.
- Pull up BBC Deadly 60 Food Chain Game. Build food chains together on white board.
- Independent Work- three websites listed are already located on a class folder or on the class website.
- Students may also use class library as a resource to help them build food chains.
- Students work independently to identify Terrestrial Food chains and Aquatic Food Chains and will diagram a food chain of each kind on Foldable found here Terrestrial and Aquatic foldables.
- Students draw an example of a desert food chain in the Science Notebook.(may draw picture or write the animals names). Next list other plants or animals that the members of the food chain they drew might eat.
Chain Reaction- Excellent website because it allows students to build a couple of different food chains and introduces what happens if the chain is broken and an animal is taken out of the food Chain. Interactive way for students to connect to the material.
Environmental Education for Kids(EEK) has a section dealing with habitats located all over the globe.Check out this location to study a desert habitat. The illustrations and photographs help illustrate the text.
EEk also has a great section called Critter Corner that will students to learn more about each animal in the food chain- where it sleeps, what it eats, what particular adaptations like camouflage, mimicry, or others the animals possess. Great way for students to connect to the content.
Kid's Corner- Food Chains-Producers and Consumers-Games- see reference section for more details about this website.
References:
*Lesson activities adapted sources listed in the Cycle of Life 1: Food Chain found on the Science Net Links Website, http://sciencenetlinks.com/lessons/cycle-of-life-1-food-chain/,Advancing Science Serving Society, 2003.
Also visited Bookish Ways in Math and Science. bookishways.blogspot.com/. A blog on teaching elementary math and science using children's literature. The blog also shares some great information on a variety of resources and how we can use them in lesson planning. Found many ideas to help teach ecosystems.