Habitats Lesson

To identify what organisms within an ecosystem compete for and how their population is affected if their needs are not met, be able to identify the flow of energy through an ecosystem and articulate different roles in an ecosystem, including decomposers, plants, predators, etc.

Understand what makes an ecosystem healthy or balanced, and that animals compete for resources. This will lay the groundwork for understanding niches, etc. in later science lessons.

Create a food web for an assigned habitat. Students will choose mystery envelope with a habitat name inside (city, tundra, coral reef, for example). 

Students will have seen food webs previously and completed the flow of energy chart on these webs. They are now designing a similar worksheet to share with their classmates.

• Opening Question: Students will come in and, using Google Classroom, answer the displayed question on their own. In order to focus students on the concept of food webs, I may ask a question such as "how are plants and animals dependent on each other?" or "Why do we need to eat?" Students will have 5 minutes to answer the question while they get settled. We’ll then discuss some of the different student answers.

• I will describe the activity, showing students an example food web work sheet created by students in past years in order to guide their work. I will remind students of our discussions of consumers, decomposers, etc, and tell them I will be looking for each of these in their final products.

• Divide into groups, sending each group to a table (or to collect a mystery envelope with their habitat inside). Each table has a “habitat” on it that they must populate with plants and animals from that habitat. Students will use text book and CPS’ online resources (library and age-appropriate encyclopedia / scientific articles ) to (A) provide a definition of the ecosystem, and (B) identify:

   

  1) abiotic aspects of the habitats (they should include the sun and the concept that energy from the sun is used by plants)

  2) biotic aspects of the habitats

  3) plantlife found in the habitats

  4) herbivores (primary consumers)

  5) omnivores (secondary consumers)

  6) carnivores (tertiary consumers)

  7) decomposers

   

• They will select one example from each group to design a food web with arrows showing the flow of energy to share with the class and for use in habitat tag game. They can first create the food web themselves, then redesign this as a worksheet for their classmates to complete.

Students will have a pre-assessment for the lesson plan through the opening question. This will allow me to identify what information about habitats students have retained, as well as determine how they are doing with their critical thinking skills and applying that information to a broader topic. I will be able to go over any areas of weakness quickly before putting students into their small groups.

Though the work produced by the small groups will in and of itself work as an assessment, I will also take these worksheets, go over them, and choose one or two to distribute to the class as a whole. Students will complete these individually, thus once more allowing me to see how well students have absorbed the information they've been handling. 

Finally, students will be able to work individually on their tablets using IXL during WIN (What I NEED) in order to further reinforce their learning. Because IXL provides me with analytics, I will be able to look at the feedback provided and better determine which students continue to struggle and which have the concepts of food chains and habitats down.

This will further cement concepts of food webs and habitats in students minds. Once we've finished with this project, I will introduce a new outdoor lesson (habitat tag), as well as a new board game (Evolution) into the classroom. 

Habitat tag can be played, to help students continue to learn how food webs work. We will use the habitats and animals investigated in small groups in order to 'populate' our game (so if students had 'everglades' as a habitat, our predators may be herons or alligators). We can use these games to further explore questions like "what happens if there's a sudden increase in prey population? What happens if we keep following this scenario?" This will allow students to truly grasp how habitats stay in balance.

https://betterlesson.com/lesson/633029/ecosystem-game

The board game "Evolution" can be played by students during Friday Fun or as an earned reward. 

https://www.northstargames.com/products/evolution