Curated OER
Lessons: Food Web
Students use an interactive web-based food web game to gain familiarity with tropic levels and interactions. They already understand that in an ecosystem there are four basic tropic levels: producers, primary consumers, secondary...
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Trophic Relationships, Cycling of Chemicals, Human Impact on Ecosystems and Conservation
Students explore how the energy flow through a system is related to trophic levels. They investigate how organisms affect the cycling of elements and water through the biosphere. Students participate in lab activities to observe ways...
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Heat 1
In this heat instructional activity, students determine the heat gained or lost when matter changes phases. Students review the energy flow through ecosystems by comparing trophic levels and food webs. This instructional activity has 10...
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Ecosystems - Plants and Animals Together
Students study the biotic and abiotic factors of an environment. In this exploratory lesson students examine the different trophic levels and how organisms are connected.
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Everybody Needs a Little Sunshine
Three activities introduce upper elementary ecologists to photosynthesis and food webs. In the first, an experiment is set up to determine how plants respond to different types of light. In the second, they connect organism cards with...
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Food Chains & Food Webs
Tenth graders examine how energy is lost through different trophic levels. In this trophism lesson students construct a food web and view a video.
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Sample Midyear Examination (Chemistry and Biology)
A 12-page midterm exam sample can be given to young scientists in preparation for an exam. This particular installment is geared toward a class that delves into both ecology and chemistry concepts. There is no way to separate the 50...
NOAA
Deep-Sea Ecosystems – Life is Weird!
A pool of brine in the deep sea can be up to four times as salty as the surrounding sea water. The deep sea ecosystem relies on chemosynthesis and the organisms that live there are often strange to us. The lesson focuses on researching...
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Biomanipulation
Students explore the effects of aquatic trophic relationships on water transparency. They observe and explain the effects of reducing nutrient inputs on agal density on water transparency.
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Micro-Ecosystems
Students create a sustainable, self-contained ecosystem in a ten-gallon aquarium.
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Populations and Ecosystems
Seventh graders create a model of an ecosystem and label it to show structure and function. They research the food web of an aquatic animal and also trace energy flow from the primary producer up the food chain.
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The Biosphere
In this biosphere worksheet, learners identify the different levels of organization that ecologists study. Students complete charts, sentences, and answer short answer questions.
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A Tale of Two Reactors
Tenth graders role-play as members of the food chain. Sticky tables acting as polluting factors are introduced and members of different trophic levels suffer varying degrees of damage due to those pollutants.
Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Building Ecological Pyramids
Looking for a fresh take on traditional food/energy pyramids? Conduct an innovative activity where pupils build their own! The lesson uses research data from Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique for a real-life safari touch. Scholars...
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The Mechanisms of Decay and Decomposition
Eighth graders study how all living things die. They are introduced tot he life cycle and the concept of an ecosystem. Students have a introductory exposure to trophic levels (producer-consumer-decomposer) in the environment.
Chicago Botanic Garden
Leaf Litter Ecology Lab
Some organisms spend their entire lives in leaf litter. The third in a series of six is a great lesson exploring the community of leaf litter. Groups gather and then spread leaf litter over white paper and remove leaves/twigs while...
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The Barn Owl Pellet
Seventh graders examine the factors that affect the number and types of organisms that an ecosystem can support. In this ecosystem lesson students study the barn owl and where it is on the food chain, then dissect an owl pellet.
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Let's Create an Ecosystem
Seventh graders discover how an ecosystem works by creating one in class. In this Earth science lesson, 7th graders study vocabulary terms associated with ecosystem and read environment handouts. Students create an observatory...
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Let's Create An Ecosystem
Seventh graders create ecosystems in a jar which they observe over the course of the school year.
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Identifying trophic levels and the skeletal system through Owl Pellets
Young scholars identify a food chain sequence. They compare, identify, and record the rodent skeletal parts to a rodent skeletal diagram. Students construct a rodent skeleton from the skeletal parts found in the pellet. They are given...
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Plants 'R' Us!
Students investigate the interdependencies of plants and animals, and study what a food web is. They create a food web using yarn and images.
Curated OER
The Food Chain Game - A Lesson in Ecosystems
Students are divided into three groups, herbivores, omnivores, and carnivores which receive a certain number of lives. Once in their ecosystem (outside or the gym), the carnivores chase and eat either the herbivores or omnivores, the...
Curated OER
Principles of Ecology
In this ecology worksheet, students will fill in a graphic organizer showing the relationship organisms have with their environments and with each other. This includes biotic and abiotic factors, tropic levels, and ecological pyramids....
Simply Worksheets
Food Chain Categories
For this food chains worksheet, students fill out the food chains listed with the correct consumer and producers. Students fill out 4 food chains total.