|
Overview: Through the creation of a model food chain, children will investigate how energy flows through living organisms. When paired with the book, Who Eats What - Food Chains and Food Webs, by Patricia Lauber, the children can investigate additional food chains and more complex food webs.
Booklink: Who Eats What - Food Chains and Food Webs, by Patricia Lauber, a Let's-Read-And-Find-Out Science Book, Harper Collins, 1995. ISBN 0-46594-00495-6
Science Activity Link: Children will construct a model of a simple food chain. The flow of energy from the sun to plants, plants to animals, and animals to animals will be investigated and modeled. Using additional pictures, various food chains can be constructed. Vocabulary words and concepts such as carnivore, herbivore, omnivore, consumer, producer, and energy flow in an ecosystem can be introduced and explored.
Objective: Children will construct model food chains. They will also investigate how animals depend on plants and other animals for food. Students may also classify foods they like to eat, as well as plants and animals into groups, as per the vocabulary introduced.
Science Processes and Content: Processes-observing, classifying, communicating, inferring, and making models. Content-food chains, food webs, predator-prey relationships, cycles, habitats, and energy flow in an ecosystem.
National Science Education Standards: Unifying Concepts and Processes, (1) Science as Inquiry, (3) Life Science
Materials: Per child--one paper plate, a piece of yarn or string about one yard long, four index cards, a copy of the plant and animal pictures, scissors, crayons, markers, or colored pencils, tape, and the book, Who Eats What - Food Chains and Food Webs.
Procedure:
Discuss why people need food. Have the children share what types of food they enjoy eating. Have the children classify the foods they eat into groups depending on whether they come from plants or animals. Vocabulary can be introduced. Discuss how other living things need food too. Introduce the concept of energy flow, and discuss how it travels from one level to another through the food chain.
Children will construct their initial food chain using the pictures of a hawk, a lizard, an insect, and grass. Have them color and cut out the pictures and glue one on each of the four index cards. Next have them color the paper plate (the side you eat from) to represent the sun. "SUN" can also be written. Next, the children should fasten their yarn to the back of the plate, making sure the sun and the word, if written, are right side up.
The teacher might now ask the students, "Which picture gets their energy from the sun?" GRASS. Have them lay the picture below the sun. "Which picture would eat the grass?" INSECT. And so on.
The children should then arrange their cards on their desk in the correct order. Once this is accomplished, they should tape their cards to the yarn in the correct sequential order.
Additional food chains can be constructed using the 2nd animal and plant sheet of pictures. Another option might be to put a large sun on the bulletin board and have the students, on their own, construct food chains that could be added to complete the display.
The book, Who Eats What?, can be used to extend this activity before the additional food chains are constructed. It is also an excellent introduction to the more complex food webs.
Related Books:
The Wide-Mouthed Frog by Keith Faulkner, Dial Books for Young Readers, 1996. ISBN 0-8037-1875-6
The Icky Sticky Frog by Dawn Bentley, Piggy Toes Press, 1999. ISBN 1-58117-042-4
|
