Lesson plan

Food chains

Summary
Look for living things in pond and/or soil habitats. Construct food chains from the organisms found and other unseen organisms that live there too. Build a deer skeleton, and from discussion around how the deer lived and died, construct a food web starting with a deer.
Science content
Biology: Features, Adaptations of Living Things (K, 1, 3, 7)
Biology: Classification of Living Things, Biodiversity (1, 3)
Biology: Food Webs, Ecosystems, Biomes (3, 4)
Materials

Materials in the chosen activities.
Optional: Tree of Life poster e.g. this one

Procedure

Do a selection of these activities, connecting each to food chains.

Optionally start and/or end looking at a Tree of Life (evolutionary tree) poster, and discuss who eats who.

Show the links between living things simply and dramatically with the Food web model activity.

Pollination posting game to show an interaction between animals and plants.
Optional extension: flower UV patterns cards.

If the right time of year, go on a hunt for animals living in the soil. Bring them back to the classroom in some soil.

Do the soil study (inside or outdoors) and form a list of animals found in the soil that can be connected into a food chain. Discuss animals’ role in decomposition and how important it is.

Find organisms in a pond habitat.
Pond water in white tubs on students desks.
Discuss adaptations that must be different in pond organisms (from the soil): moisture, temperature (frozen pond), light.

Focus on one soil animal and how it is adapted for survival and it's place in the food chain: Worm observation.

Focus on one animal, a deer, or chicken, and how it is connected to other animals.
Construct the deer skeleton. Once constructed, discuss what ate the deer when it died and after it died. Draw up a food chain as suggestions are made. Add to the food chain what food the deer eats, if possible connecting to other food chains already made from previous activities.
Look at a live chicken and discuss how it is connected to the food chain.

Focus on a plant adaptation for survival: seed helicopter paper model.

Notes

Activities overlap with the Biodiversity lesson, but have a different discussion focus.

Grades taught
Gr K
Gr 1
Gr 2
Gr 3
Gr 4
Gr 5