Populations

Entangle your life science class in learning with this collaborative food web activity. Using pictures of the plants and animals native to a particular ecosystem, young biologists work in small groups to construct visual representations...

Plants. We can't live without them! Bill Nye discusses how every living thing relies on plants using a concept called the food web. In a very visual demonstration, he ties a cord from one picture to another on a three-dimensional...

A disgusting and direct description of detritus and decomposition is digested in this drill! Your life science class learns about the importance of decomposers in the food chain and finds out how one organism's trash is another...

Rhinozilla is Mia's bearded dragon and the focus of this lesson on energy flow in an ecosystem. She uses him to explain the energy pyramid, from producers through third level consumers, and she likens the food chain to a video game. Mia...

Explore the food chains that support Arctic ecosystems. A class discussion on interdependence and the different roles plants and animals play in ecosystems provides students with the knowledge to complete a worksheet asking them to...

Get caught in a web of learning. Classmates play a game to build a web to model the interaction of species that live in a specific ecosystem. They each assume the role of one species and work together, passing a ball of twine to indicate...

Learners will create a food chain model and use it to describe the movement of matter among plants, animals, decomposers, and the environment. Resources include a detailed lesson plan, student handouts, pictures of a completed chain,...

Young scholars will build a food web diagram and illustrate the movement of matter through a series of food chains. Resources include detailed plans, examples of student work, videos of the lesson in action, and sample food webs.

The theory of keystone species in an ecosystem was first established in 1969 by Robert T. Paine. Pupils open the final lesson in a five-part series with a game guessing which member of the alpine ecosystem they are based on clues. After...

Reading comprehension and note-taking skills are practiced as young ecologists embark on this journey. Explorers visit a website where they will read about three ecosystems that are in danger. They use interactive programs to build a...