Students synthesize their understanding of adaptations by playing a “go fish” style game to collect sets of organisms with physical and behavioral adaptations.

Educators Guide for this unit:
http://education.eol.org/lesson_plans/2-5_Adaptations_LessonOverview.pdf

Lessons in this unit:

Adaptations Activity 1: Adapting to the Environment
Adaptations Activity 2: Physical Adaptations
Adaptations Activity 3: Behavioral Adaptations
Adaptations Activity 4: Go Adapt!
Adaptations Activity 5: Create a Creature

This article describes some common misconceptions that elementary students may have about biomes and ecosystems. It also includes suggestions for formative assessment and teaching for conceptual change.

This lesson is about the flow of energy in ecosystems. The setting is Plimoth Plantation, a living history museum in Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA, where students will learn about the first Thanksgiving meal in America, celebrated in 1621 by early American settlers and Wampanoag Indians. By examining this meal and comparing it to a modern day Thanksgiving celebration, students will be able to explore the way in which food energy moves and is transformed in an ecosystem. The learning goals focus on the movement of energy from one feeding level to the next within a food web, the way in which energy changes form, and the inefficiency of energy transfer, which in turn affects the availability of food energy for organisms at the highest feeding level. The lesson is directed at high school level biology students. Students should be familiar already with food webs, food chains, and trophic (feeding) levels. They should also be familiar with the general equations for photosynthesis (CO2 + H2O => C6H12O6) and cell respiration (C6H12O6 => CO2 + H2O), and understand the basic purpose of these processes in nature. This lesson can be completed during one long classroom period, or can be divided over two or more class meetings. The duration of the lesson will depend on prior knowledge of the students and on the amount of time allotted for student discussion. There are no supplies required for this lesson other than the downloadable worksheets (accessed on this BLOSSOMS site), paper and some glue or tape.

Students become “experts” and make creative presentations about the different ecological roles of producers, consumers, and decomposers at local and global scales.

After learning about food chains, students practice building food chains and design their own backyard food chains.

Students synthesize their understanding of energy flow and trophic relationships through “Food Chains Rummy,” a modified version of the classic card game using Species Cards.

This activity is a guided inquiry by students into balancing ecosystems through food chains and webs.

In these life science activities, students will participate in field observations of living things & do research of animals they observe to create a food chain & present it to the class. Students will participate in a food web simulation game.

By using this tiered assignment students at different levels are able to review characteristics of living things by either creating a food web or food chart.

Students will observe organisms in their ecosystem and describe the flow of energy in food webs

This article highlights hands-on or multimedia lesson plans about the tundra and ecosystem concepts. Science lessons are paired with suggested literacy lesson plans. All lessons are aligned to national standards.

Students practice building food chains and webs, explore interrelationships in the EOL Food Webs Tool, then model the flow of energy in food webs.

Students model how a complex system operates and how some parts of a complex system have more leverage or influence on the rest of the system. Students relate this to the interconnectedness of food webs.

Date of this Version
Spring 2019

Document Type
Portfolio

Citation
Kenworthy, Celeste and Aurora Kenworthy. "Living World Club." After school club lesson plans. University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2019.

Comments
Copyright 2019 by Celeste Kenworthy under Creative Commons Non-Commercial License. Individuals and organizations may copy, reproduce, distribute, and perform this work and alter or remix this work for non-commercial purposes only.

Abstract
An afterschool club that focuses on building understanding and enjoyment of nature and the environment through interactive and collaborative activities.

The students will watch an introductory video on food chains. They will also complete an activity that will simulate the foraging routines of a predator.

This article assembles free resources from the Tundra: Life in the Polar Extremes issue of the Beyond Penguins and Polar Bears cyberzine into a unit outline based on the 5E learning cycle framework. Outlines are provided for Grades K-2 and 3-5.

This article features children's literature about the tundra, food chains, and food webs.