IOWA 4-9 SCIENCE PROJECT

TEACHER GUIDE for: Give and Take (Food Chains II) Lowell Wiele
ECOLOGY.691 Grade 6-9

CONCEPT OBJECTIVE:
In this three part learning cycle (Ecology.690, .691, .692) the
students will discover the food and energy relationships
found in communities. As the he students discover that all
food chains begin with green plants they will connect the
organisms into logical food chains and then construct a
workable food web from the food chains.

PROCESS OBJECTIVE:
Thinking skills developed in this cycle are inferring,
recording, and reporting.

TEACHER NOTES:
Learning cycles Ecology.690, .691, and .692 can be used as
individual activities or in sequence. This three part
activity will take a minimum of three class periods (50
minutes each), with time for additional follow up work
optional.

MATERIALS:
These activities will need the following materials: glue,
yarn, strong thread or wire, scissors, reference books,
colored pencils, and 12 x 18 inch drawing paper.

EXPLORATION:
Students will be put into groups of four or five. Each
student will be assigned a specific organism with only one
producer per group. The students will now try to form one
or more food chains within their groups. After the students
learn that they can form food chains a ball of yarn is given
and all the students are asked to try and form a food web.
As each organism is identified in the food web the yarn is
unwound and stretched from organism to organism thus making
a complex food web. (Make sure all organisms are from the
same community so the food web will work).

CONCEPT DEVELOPMENT:
Put a list of animals on the board along with their specific
habitats (woodland, marsh, etc.). Students construct at
least three food chains (at least three links long) from the
habitat they choose. They may use the same producer for all
three chains or choose different producers. Students should
then label their food chain organisms as producer, first
order consumer, and second order consumer.
Students then develop these food chains into a workable
food web for the community they chose. Have the students
tell the role of decomposers in a food web.

APPLICATION:
1. All food chains begin with a green plant. Look up
photosynthesis and explain how a green plant gets its
energy.
2. Questions to the student: How are different
organisms designed to live in their specific environment?
How have certain organisms adapted to live in their
environment? Give examples.
3. Draw and explain a pyramid of numbers, a pyramid of
biomass, and a pyramid of energy.
4. (This activity will depend on the maturity of the
students). A game activity in which the students are given
the name of an organism in a food chain. They all hold
hands and sing a version of "The Farmer in the Dell". When
an organism chooses a successive organism in the food chain
they enter the circle. Another version of this is "Hi O The
Universe, The Sun is in the Sky" and could be played during
this food chain activity.