Lesson: Web of Life
Teacher: Kelley Haney
Date:
Time: 1 Hour
SCofS Objectives
Competency Goal 7:
The learner will conduct investigations and use technologies and
information
systems to build an understanding of population dynamics.
7.01 Describe ways in
which
organisms interact with each other and with non-living parts of the
environment:
-
Coexistence/Cooperation/Competition
- Mutual dependence.
Key Questions
- Students will demonstrate an understanding of interdependence within an ecosystem
Materials
- Ball of String or yarn
- Blue, green, and red tags
- Tape or pins
- Scissors
Procedure
- Introduction (5 minutes)
o Ask, “What are producers and consumers and how are they tied together within the environment?
o Discuss
- Review Activity (30 minutes)
o Let students provide the following answers to each category (suggestions given in parenthesis)
o Write the ecosystem “laws” on blue tags (light, air, soil, and water).
o Write the names of plant parts on green tags (seed, bud, lead, twig, bark, nut, flower, berry)
o Write the name of the consumers on the red tags (insect, hummingbird, robin, moose, deer, squirrel, chipmunk, rabbit, raccoon, weasel, hawk, owl, coyote, woodpecker, fox, and wolf).
o Each student will make and get one tag, but not the one he or she makes.
o The students will sit in a circle with the colors mixed up around the circle.
o Ask students how they think the food web begins in the ecosystem.
o Students should begin with connecting the “laws” with the plants
o Ask students what comes next.
o Students should proceed to connect plant eaters to plants parts. Then connect plant eaters to the “laws” they use directly
o Ask students what meat eaters now eat which plant eaters? Don’t forget about connecting back to the laws
o Make as many connections as possible.
o Discuss what connections were made
o Discuss interdependance
o If the web became less complex what would happen?
- Procedure (30 minutes)
o Ask students what things are nonliving in the environment.
o Ask students how they think organisms depend on within the environment that are nonliving
o PowerPoint
o Discuss how adaptations and other means of survival depend upon nonliving aspects of the environment.
- Closure
o Ask students to turn to their group members and each of them tell one thing they learned from the lesson about interdependance within an ecosystem
Assessment
Anecdotal records of student participation
Next Steps
Students will explore how a habit in their local community has adapted to meet challenges to its food web.
Differentiation
Verbal, Kinesthetic, Auditory
Page Author: Kelley Haney