Disciplinary Unit - Lesson 4

I. General Information:

Grade Level: 2nd grade

Discipline: Science

Unit Topic: Animal Habitats

Time Frame: one 50 minute class

Other Materials: string, pictures of animals and plants, student-made

habitat journals

Online article - http://www.pklifescience.com/article/413/food-chains-and-

food-webslogin?username=thealberta&password=library

II. Essential Understand/Questions:

What is a food chain?

What is a food web?

How do animals get the energy they need to survive?

What relationships exist among animals in the same habitat?

III. Standards/Indicators:

Topic

F. Ecology

Indicator

1. Explain that organisms can grow and survive in many very different
habitats.
Objectives
 1 Investigate a variety of familiar and unfamiliar habitats and describe how
animals and plants found there maintain their lives and survive to reproduce.
2 Explain that organisms live in habitats that provide their basic needs
o Food
o Water
o Air
o Shelter

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.2.3

Use knowledge of language and its conventions when writing, speaking, reading,
or listening.

IV. Lesson Objectives:

Students will be able to explain what food chains and food webs are.

Students will gain an understanding of relationships among plants and animals in a

habitat.

Students will be able to show the exchange of energy between animals/plants

through the use of food chains/webs.

V. Evaluation/Assessments:

The habitat journals will be collected at the conclusion of the unit and
graded based on completion and accuracy.
Students understand of the topic will be informally assessed through
questions asked by the teacher.
Students will be informally assessed through their participation in the
interactive food chain/web activity.

VI. Procedures:
Introduction

The teacher will ask students, How do animals get the energy they need to
survive? This will begin a discussion of how we get the energy we need to
survive and lead into a comparison of how animals obtain energy.

Teaching/Activities

The teacher will hand out an article about food chains and students will turn
to the person on their right and read the article together.
After several minutes, the teacher will bring the class together and show the
article on the SmartBoard, where they will read the article aloud to the class.
The teacher will ask the following questions for students to verbally answer
o What are food chains?
o How do animals get the energy they need to survive?
o Can you give an example of another food chain?
o How do we (as humans) fit into a food chain?
After having a class discussion on the questions listed above, students will
be asked to move to the reading carpet.
The teacher will give each student a card that has a picture of a plant or
animal and a number in the bottom corner.
The teacher will explain that they are going to create food chains and a food
web using the pictures and a ball of yarn.
The activity will be explained. The teacher is the sun and will begin each
food chain. The teacher will roll the ball of string to the person who has the
card numbered 1. The student who received the ball will turn his/her card
around and announce the plant/animal they are. The student will then roll the
ball of string to the next number.
As students roll the ball around, the teacher will explain that energy is
moving from one animal to the next because the larger animal is eating the
smaller animal.
There will be several food chains that will create a food web. Once the string
has reached the animal at the top of the food chain, the teacher will
announce that said animal is the top of that food chain and the ball will be
returned to the teacher (who is the sun) and a new food chain will begin.

Closure
 Once all students have received the string, students will hold their string in
the air and the teacher will explain that they have created a food web
consisting of many different food chains. Students will then return to their
seats and complete an exit ticket by drawing a food chain of their own.

Resources

Food chains and food webs. (n.d.). Power Knowledge: Life Science & Rosen
Publishing. Retrieved April 26, 2017, from
http://www.pklifescience.com/article/413/food-chains-and-food-webs