SC.4.L.17.3

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will be able to explain the purpose and path of a food chain is, describe a simple Everglades food chain and trace the flow of energy from the sun as it is transferred. Students will also be able to explain the impacts of a loss of a species in a food chain. 

Type: Lesson Plan

In this STEM lesson, students will build a food chain with Florida organisms and keep the energy "point level" within a desired range.  There will then be some scenarios that will be placed on the food chain and student engineers will try to keep their food chain in tact.

Type: Lesson Plan

This fun lesson gives students the chance to "act out" food chains. By really putting themselves into food chains, students will better understand the transfer of energy through the food chain, as well as understand that the sun is the primary source of energy in a food chain. This lesson ends with students constructing their own food chains, and writing an explanatory paragraph to explain the flow of energy through the food chain they constructed.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson the students will learn about a predator/prey relationship. They will learn about the role that plants and animals play in their ecosystem and what each role is called. The students will also learn about the limiting factors each ecosystem possesses that prevent any species population from becoming too large.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this activity about food webs, students learn that producers make all of the molecules they need from simple substances and energy from the sun, other living things depend on producers for food, and living things that must eat other organisms as food are known as consumers. Food webs show all of the various interactions among producers and consumers in an ecosystem. Following an introduction to the content, students are divided into six groups and given a set of six cards, each of which represents a producer or consumer, unique to one of six different ecosystems. From the set of cards, students identify the producers and consumers, discuss who might eat whom, and construct an illustration of the possible food web configurations.

Type: Lesson Plan

Explore food chains found in many Florida ecosystems as you complete this interactive tutorial.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Explore energy flow in the environment through food chains as you complete this interactive tutorial.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

In this project students will research a mountain ecosystem. They will create a presentation of their ecosystem that includes information on animals and vegetation, which will also demonstrate the flow of energy through the ecosystem. Students will interpret and analyze the data to hypothesize what would happen if a species was removed or added to the flow of energy. To finalize, students will write an explanatory piece that describes the possible changes that would take place if an animal was removed from an ecosystem and how that would affect the food chain.

Type: Project

In this food science activity, learners observe different plant-originated foods. This activity will help learners understand that consumers (including humans) rely on producers, specifically plants and plant parts, for food. This lesson guide includes background information and variation ideas.

Type: Teaching Idea

In this activity, students make connections among penguins and other antarctic animals. They will trace the flow of energy in food chains and webs.

Type: Teaching Idea

In this activity, the students will discover the food energy relationship within a food web in a coral reef habitat.

Type: Teaching Idea

In this activity, the students will learn how animals are interconnected with the arctic ecosystem and how humans impact these interrelationships.

Type: Teaching Idea

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. The article describes how energy passes through food chains. Examples of each link in the chain and a description of its role in the food chain are given.

Type: Text Resource