Hello, I am a pre-service teacher and for one of my classes I am creating a 7E Science lesson. My topic is decribing the flow of energy within a food web, including the roles of the sun, producers, consumers and decomposers. I want my activity to be hands on but so far the only thing that pops up is card sorts. My question is: what are a few ways I can make learning about the food web more interesting and interactive?
What grade is this for? I just finished with 8th grade. Our phenomena was an article and video on David Latimer's bottle garden. We then created our own closed bottle gardens for Explore. Did notes, models for Explain on energy flow, photosynthesis and respiration. We used modeling labs on photosynthesis and respiration for Elaborate. Our test was in CERs based on energy flow, food webs, photosynthesis and respiration using the bottle garden.
Hi Jasmine! One of the things we did in my classroom was to create a stream cross section from a small stream next to the school. We had a 50 gallon tank with a chiller and initially collected rocks and stream bed material for the bottom and filled the tank with the stream water. The kids would collect macroorganisms, crayfish and small fish and put them in the tank. We also did leafpack activities from decaying leaves and deposited the organisms in the tank. We did this in addition to Trout in the Classroom where we raised Brook Trout.
The kids used dichotomous keys for identification and journalled. We also kept track of the type and quantity of organisms collected and discussed why there are different numbers of different species in the stream and how that fit in the food chain and food web. In the trout tank, we took our aquarium filters and used them to build a composter out of clear plastic to show the decomposers.
The kids really liked the various activities and it brought the food web to light for them.
Best of luck!
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