~ John Muir, 1911 My First Summer In The Sierra
First to Fifth
Standards Addressed
This lesson plan addresses the following National Science education Standards:
* Structure and function in living systems
* Populations and ecosystems
* Diversity and adaptations of Organisms
First Grade California Content Standards
Life Sciences
2. Plants and animals meet their needs in different ways.
As a basis for understanding this concept, students know:
a. different plants and animals inhabit different kinds of environments and have external features that help them thrive in different kinds of places.
b.plants and animals both need water, animals need food, and plants need light.
c. animals eat plants or other animals for food and may also use plants or even other animals for shelter and nesting.
Investigation and Experimentation
4. Scientific progress is made by asking meaningful questions and conducting careful investigations.
As a basis for understanding this concept, and to address the content of the other three strands, students should develop their own questions and perform investigations. Students will:
a. draw pictures that portray some of the features of the thing being described.
b. record observations and data with pictures, numbers, and/or written statements.
Objectives
* Students will learn how organisms living at Boggs Lake Preserve are interdependent
* Students will use food webs to show feeding relationships in a habitat
* Students will research facts about organisms featured in the virtual field trip
* Students will prepare an illustrated card with facts about a selected organism
* Students will create a food-web display
Materials
Virtual field trip, Vernal Pool Paradise: A Virtual Field Trip To Boggs Lake Preserve http://webspace.webring.com/people/lv/vernalpool_boggs
Procedures
As a class, review the definitions of the following terms:
* food web: a way of showing how plants and animals in a habitat depend on each other
* organism: any living thing
* predator: an animal that kills other animals for food
*prey: an animal tat is hunted by another for food
Ask students if they can remember what they ate for dinner last night. Build upon this question by asking students to name what animals might have been eating at Boggs Lake Preserve:
Dragonfly (small insects)
Western Fence Lizard (ants, that dragonfly we just talked about)
Chipmunk (grass seeds, acorns)
Deer (grass)
Explain that animals eat and are eaten. This progression creates a food chain. An example food chain might be:
Raccoon>>Frog>>Grasshopper>>Grass
The lowest organism on a food chain is as plant. Plants can create food but they cannot eat other organisms (except for the Venus Flytrap and other special plants - which make unique food chains). Explain that in a habitat, animals and plants are inter dependent. They need each other. Food chains overlap to form a web of multiple energy paths. Feeding relationships are better shown in a food web rather than a chain. Assist students in illustrating and creating food webs. Students may glue pictures (from a hand out created by the teacher) on a piece of construction paper and draw lines with arrows to what is being eaten. have the students (and possibly their cross age buddy) select one Boggs Lake Preserve organism that they will research. On 12"x 12 " tag boar students will illustrate the organism on one side and include the information below on the other:
* Name of organism
* Is it prey (If yes, list predators)
* Is it a predator? (If yes, list prey)
* Does it help other species survive?
* How do other species help it survive?
* At least one cool fact
Yarn food web game: Students wear the pictures they created of the organisms livining at the preserve (coyote, wild turkey, Manzanita). Students stand in a circle. "IT" hold a ball of yarn looping the end loosely around his/her hand. "IT" names his/her organism and what it eats or is eaten by and passes the yarn to the person wearing that organism. (I am a mountain lion and i eat jackrabbits. I am a jackrabbit and I eat grass. I am grass and deer eat me.)Play continues until as large a web as possible is formed. Allow players to exchange cards and get ready for a need game as you rewind the yarn.
Assessment
Creation of dioramas: Students create 3D food webs by using plastic animals, saltdough, clay, etc. This can be a "family project" with students acting as the team leader. dioramas can be displayed on, or even created at , Family Science Night.
