5E Lesson Plan over Food Chains

Summary: The topic of this journal article is how valuable food webs are to an environment. This article gives a detailed 5E lesson plan for a third-grade class. During the engage section of... See More

Summary: The topic of this journal article is how valuable food webs are to an environment. This article gives a detailed 5E lesson plan for a third-grade class. During the engage section of the lesson plan, students are using prior knowledge to create a list of animals, plants and fungi that they regularly see in their neighborhood. They share their list with their classmates and go outside to investigate more animals, fungi and plants. For the explore section of the lesson plan, students are going to be wearing a fact card on their chest that can be seen. Each student represents a different factor within an ecosystem. All students will be sitting on the floor for this next activity, the teacher will be holding a ball of yarn. The students will then decide which factor in the ecosystem gets to hold a piece of the string, they then weave around and connect each factor to the next factor accordingly and create a giant food web. The students give a tug to see how many factors feel the tug of the string to see who all in the food web is connected. During the explain portion of this lesson, the students are going over specific vocabulary words related to the topic. During the elaborate portion of the lesson, the students begin an online food web challenge. They are creating food chains online to see if their ecosystem will last. They run simulations and come up with predictions as to what might happen to their ecosystem if they have two omnivores or two herbivores. During the evaluation stage, the teacher is formally assessing students through each activity. The students will be applying their knowledge to answer two multiple choice questions and two open ended questions. Review: Overall, I really enjoyed reading this specific 5E lesson plan. I really liked the activity of the students creating a real-life food web using string and their bodies. I could see third grade students loving this activity. I also really liked the idea of doing an online simulation to create different food chains to see which factors would survive.