Lesson Plan for Ottowa Hills Montessori School
Lesson: Habitats, food chains, and competition
Unit: Ecosystems
Purpose: to teach kids about ecosystems and all of the interactions
that happen within them, so
that they may have a better understanding and appreciation for the world
around them.
Age Level: 4th-6th grade
Time: one hour
Materials: 90-120 paper strips, tape, crayons/markers, 75 poker chips,
30 copies of habitat
worksheet, chalk and chalkboard, 30 carpet squares.
Participants: 30
Plan: (9 minutes) Ecosystem
1) Ask students what they know about ecosystems. Then write the definition
on the board: An ecosystem includes all of the relationships between
animals and plants in an area and their interactions with the physical
environment. Questions:
What could relationships be? What could these interactions be? What
does the definition mean by physical environment? Discuss it until you
know they understand what all of the words in the definition are.
2) Tell students how ecosystems are embedded in each other, then show
picture cards. Ask the students what animals and plants live in each
one (a few examples).
*Earth ecosystem. Ex: humans, lions, grass, trees.
*Island Ecosystem- found in the earth ecosystem. Ex: trees, fish, rabbits.
*Watershed ecosystem-lake-found in an island ecosystem. Ex: fish, seaweed,
deer.
*Tree as an ecosystem-found in a watershed ecosystem. Ex: birds, leaves,
worms.
*Squirrel as an ecosystem-found in tree ecosystem. Ex: flies, lice,
and mites in fur.
Bacteria and parasites in digestive tract.
Ask the students what an ecosystems is. (review definition)
(9 minutes) Habitat
Tell the students that many ecosystems have different habitats in them.
definition. First ask the students if they know what a habitat is, then
write the definition on the board: a region where plants and animals
naturally grow and live; a community of species.
Word scramble: ask the students what a habitat provides for the species
that live in it. After they have brainstormed, and out the word scramble.
After everyone is finished, discuss the correct answers.
Build (draw) a habitat on the board. Have students pick and animal that
they know a lot about and which isn't domestic. Have them come up and
draw things that would be in that animal's habitat (one at a time).
Remind them to include the four things from the word scramble.
(12minutes) Food Chain
Tell the students that within different species share a habitat and
some are producers and some are consumers. Definitions: Ask the students
if they know what a producer and consumer is.
Then write them on the board and discuss them. Primary Producer: a species
that gets their energy from the sun and produces their own food. Consumer:
aspecies that gets their energy from eating other species. Ask the students
if they have every heard of a trophic level. Tell them that species
are at different trophic levels and that at each trophic level energy
is lost. Have students represent a food chain and trophic levels. Have
18 students stand together to represent grass. Then have 9 students
stand together to represent rabbits. Then have 3 students stand together
to represent lions. Ask them which group they think is the first trophic
level, then the other two. Grass is the first, rabbits the second, and
lions the third. Have a representative from each group draw their species
on the board at it's appropriate size. Ask the students what they notice
about each tropic level. They should notice that the animals increase
in size and decrease in number as they go up trophic levels. Ask them
why this is. Remind them that energy is lost at each level, so each
trophic level has to eat more than the one before it to survive. Also
ask them if grass would ever eat rabbits, or if rabbits would ever eat
lions. The should help them to discover that species only eat other
species at trophic levels below them.
Paper food chain: Tell students that now they get to make their own
food chain. Encourage them to not do grass, rabbits, and lions, but
rather to think of their own. Give students 3 or 4 strips of paper and
crayons/markers. Tell them that each strip of paper gets it's own species.
Tell them to start with a producer. Each paper after that should be
an animal that eats the last on the drew. After they have drawn their
animals, have them tape their producer in a loop. Thenhave them take
the strip with the animal that eats that eats it, loop it through, and
tape it to make another loop. Tell them that they always loop it through
the animal that it is eating. So the rabbit is looped through the grass,
and the lion is looped through the rabbit, not the grass. They can hang
the chains around the room, or bring them home.
(25 minutes) Competition
Tell the students that animals usually have to compete to get their
food.
Definitions: Write the definition of competition on the board: interaction
between individuals, through a shared requirement for a limited resource.
Ask them to tell you an example of this. Tell them there are two types
of competition: interspecific and intraspecific. Ask them if they have
a guess of what either are. Interspecific: competition between individuals
of the same species. Intraspecific: Competition between individuals
of a different species.
Deer and Resources: First teach the motions for the resources. The motion
for
food is hands on stomach. The motion for water is hands on throat. The
motion for shelter is hands in an upside-down 'v' shape above head.
Split the group in half, and make one half the deer and the other the
resources. Tell students to pay attention to both directions, because
they will most likely play both roles. Tell the students that your will
have them turn their backs to each other and decide. The deer will decide
which resource they need, and the resources will decide which they are.
Tell them when you yell "decide" they need to put their hands
for the motion they are, and that they aren't allowed to turn around
until you yell "go." When you yell" go the deer have
to run to the resource they need. Only one deer to each resource. The
resources that get used by a deer go back with the deer and become more
deer. Tell the students that this is because when the deer get what
they need they can reproduce and their population grows. Tell the students
that the deer who don't get what they need die and become a resource.
Have the students stand in parallel lines about twenty feet apart, with
their backs to the other group. Yell "decide" then "go."
After you have played a couple of rounds there should be a pattern developing.
Ask the students what time of competition this is, interspecific or
intraspecific. It's interspecific. Ask the students if they noticed
a pattern. They should say that the population size of each group alternated
each round. One round there would be a lot of deer and less resources,
so a lot of deer would die. This resulted in the next round there being
a lot of resources, so every deer got what they needed. Tell the students
that each round represents a year. Have the students play again, and
this time secretly go to the resources and tell them they can't be water
because there was a draught. After two rounds of this, tell them that
they can't be food because the drought before wiped out the food. After
a couple rounds of this bring everyone back for discussion. Ask the
deer what happened when they wanted water and there wasn't any. Discuss
how sometimes the environment can make a resource very scarce, which
increases competition. If there is less of a certain resource, it will
be harder for each deer to get because they are competing with each
other.
*introduce them to top-down and bottom-up control. Tell them that top-down
control is when the consumer population controls the producer population.
So if the deer are the consumers, when did their population size effect
the resource size? When there were a lot of deer, they depleted the
resources. So if the resources are the producers, when did their population
size affect the consumers? When there was a drought, a lot of deer died,
because they couldn't get water. This is called bottom-up control.
Squirrel, chipmunks, and nuts: Give everyone a carpet square, or something
to
signify their home base. Have them stand in a circle. Pick three students
to be squirrels, and all the rest are chipmunks. The squirrels don't
need carpet squares. Tell the students that the poker chips represent
nuts. Have the squirrels stand in the middle of the circle and tell
the chipmunks that their carpet squares is their safe zone. Through
the nuts in the circle. Tell the chipmunks that they are trying to get
as many nuts as they can, but they can only get one at a time. Each
time they get a nut they have to bring it back to their home base. The
squirrels want all the nuts for themselves so they are trying to stop
the chipmunks from getting the nuts. If a squirrel taps a chipmunk,
the chipmunk must drop the nut where they are and go back to their home
base. After they had played for a little while stop the game and add
a twist. Ask the students what kind of competition they were showing.
It was intraspecific, because squirrels and chipmunks are different
species. Have everyone throw the nuts back in the middle. Tell them
that the chipmunks are also competing with each other for the nuts.
Ask them what kind of competition that is. It is interspecific. If a
home base is left unguarded, they can still they nuts from the other
chipmunk, but only one at a time. After they have played for a while,
bring them back together for discussion. Ask the squirrels how it felt
to try and protect their food. Ask the chipmunks how it felt to get
and protect their food. Was it scary? What was their method of getting
nuts and protecting them?
(5 minutes) Wrap up
Ask the students to review the definitions we learned. Ask if they have
any
questions about the things we talked about. Tell them to keep an eye
out for ecosystems and habitats when they are outside.
Objectives:
Students will discuss the definition of an ecosystem
Students will explore how ecosystems can be embedded in one another
through cards
Students will do a word scramble to find out what habitat's provide
Students will draw a habitat for a specific animal on the board
Students will represent species in a food chain to explore trophic levels
Students will make a paper food chain
Students will play deer and resources to learn what interspecific competition
is
Students will play squirrels, chipmunks, and nuts to learn what intraspecific
competition is and review interspecific competition
Students will learn definitions of habitat, primary producer, consumer,
competition, interspecific and intraspecific competition.
Outcomes:
Students will understand how parts of an ecosystem are related and how
they interact; how energy flows through trophic levels, how population
sizes change overtime; and how things get reused in the environment.
Students will gain an understanding of the world around them through
exploring natural relationships and interactions
Students will gain empathy for species who are competing for their food
through playing the roles of those species
Students will gain communication skills through discussing their ideas
and feelings in a group
Justification of Importance of outcomes:
Understanding how parts of an ecosystem are related and interact and
how energy flows between trophic levels and how population sizes change
over time, and how things get reused and cycled through the environment
satisfies the Michigan State Framework Standard: III.4.LE.2 in the science
section
Students need to understand the world around them so they can be aware
of their affect on it, and appreciate it enough to protect it
Students will want to protect animals when they understand them better
Communication is and important life school. Students need to be able
to discuss their opinions and feelings.
