Aug 092013
Students learn about a specific food chain (coyote-squirrel-acorn in this example, but can be any local food chain) in nature and that organisms can be classified as producers, herbivores or carnivores depending on their diet. A game will be played where students take on the role of different organisms in the food chain and act out different cycles.Experimental situations are played out in the game and are designed to help the students understand that there are more organisms lower than higher in the food chain.They will also learn the consequences of separately removing carnivores and plants from the food chain.
At the conclusion of this lesson, students will be able to:
- Understand that energy flows naturally through a locally occurring food chain
- Define the terms producer, herbivore and carnivore
- Understand that there must be more individuals at the bottom of the food chain than at the top of the food chain
- Understand the effects of removal of the top predator in a food chain
- Understand the effects of reducing primary production (plant growth) in the food chain
Resources:
Lesson created by Brook Wilke