Forest Foundation
Fire - How Does it Relate to You?
Forest fires can be a necessary step in keeping a forest healthy, but what happens when they get out of control? Learners investigate the causes and effects of forest fires in two specific areas, culminating in a report about the ways...
Curated OER
Understanding Interactions Among Local Species and the Local Environment
Young scholars examine the differences between biotic and abiotic factors, explain the difference between habitat and niche and compare how organisms get their nutritional needs. In this local environment instructional activity...
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Oh Panther
Students play a game that replicates the balance of prey and predators in an ecosystem. In this physical education lesson, students follow the instructions to play "Oh Panther!" Students collect data regarding the game and discuss the...
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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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The Mighty Hudson Stretches its Mussels
Students brainstorm possible causes of zebra mussel migration and population expansion. They identify the key causes and effects of the disturbance of the Hudson River ecosystem and research causes and effects in the disturbances of...
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The Consequences of Extinction
Young scholars participate in a class discussion on site of an older style bridge to help connect the significance of each organism in an ecosystem by using an analogy of bolts slowly being removed from a working bridge.
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Plants and Animals
Seventh graders discover the interconnectedness of plants and animals in ecosystems. In groups, they create a food web and discuss the problems when one link of the chain is broken. To end the lesson, they set up a balanced environment...
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Marine Ecosystems
Students identify producers and consumers and construct a food chain from four marine ecosystems. They describe the delicate balance among organisms in each environment. In groups, students discuss the human activities that upset the...
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Exploring the Water Cycle
Students investigate the water cycle. In this water cycle lesson, students create an ecosystem within a 2-liter bottle. Students record scientific observations as they observe the water cycle within their ecosystem.
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Urban Ecosystems 4: Metabolism of Urban Ecosystems
Cities are compared to living, breathing, metabolizing organisms. Fourth in a five-part series of lessons, this one focuses on the flow of materials through a city. Links to interesting websites and images make your delivery of...
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What A Tangled Web We Weave
Learners of many ages discuss how all organisms rely on other organisms for their survival. They construct a food web and energy pyramids, and write an informative essay about the food web that they have designed.
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Food webs and Energy Flows
Learners become familiar with food chains. For this food chains lesson, students understand that as consumers eat other consumers energy is passed. Learners understand the vocabulary associated with food chains.
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Web of Predators and Prey
Learners investigate the components food chains and food webs in various ecosystems. They describe how living things depend on one another for food energy (food chain) and how more than one food chain exists in an ecosystem
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The Living Environment
Young scholars explore the cycles of an ecosystem. In this environmental science lesson, students work in groups to research the nitrogen cycle, the water cycle, or the oxygen-carbon dioxide cycle. Young scholars prepare a...
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How do plant & animal cells make and use energy?
Learners show the relationship between the need for plants to undergo photosynthesis in order to generate oxygen. They see the flaws associated with this thinking because of the lack of CO2 and H2O and lack of sufficient gravity in order...
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Links in a Food Chain
Little ones make costumes and act out a rhyme in which there are daisies, bugs, wrens, snakes, and foxes that all interact in a food web. This would be a memorable activity for primary life scientists to participate in as a wrap-up...
Columbus City Schools
Biome Basics with a Disastrous Twist
Bored with your current biome bag of tricks? This bundle is a bountiful bag of biome fun! Travel the globe with seventh graders and explore the biotic and abiotic factors that define our world's biomes. Then, introduce a little...
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Earth Systems Science
Students perform experiments designed to grow plants and bacteria in a controlled environment. In this ecosystems lesson students investigate varying conditions for growing plants and bacteria.
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Food Chains & Food Webs
Tenth graders examine how energy is lost through different trophic levels. For this trophism lesson students construct a food web and view a video.
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The Many, Varied, and Unusual Places and Things on Earth
Students discover how energy flows through communities because of the relationship between producers, consumers and decomposers. Examining various ecosystems, they identify the materials that cycle continuously through them. They label...
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The Rainforest Community
Young scholars create a miniature rainforest ecosystem, a terrarium. Students then explain how the continuous flow of energy and food in the ecosystem allows it to sustain itself.
Discovery Education
Perfectly Decomposed!
We all know someone who won't eat the banana with a brown spot, the grape with a dimple, and the apple with a bruise. Scholars use different fruits to explore what happens when fruits really start to decompose. They set up an experiment...
NASA
Biology Training Conclusion
Gravity is just one consideration when determining human habitability on a new planet. The lesson connects four different units and starts with connecting the various systems: planetary systems, human body systems, etc. After scholars...
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Food Webs
Fourth graders discover how organisms depend upon each other in an ecosystem. In this ecosystems lesson, 4th graders use food webs to discuss the interdependence between organisms in an ecosystem.