Food Chain Lesson Plan: Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics
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This lesson accompanies the BrainPOP Jr. topic Food Chain, and supports the standard of understanding that organisms are related in food webs in which some animals eat plants for food and other animals eat the animals that eat plants. Students demonstrate understanding through a variety of projects.
Step 1: ACTIVATE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE
Display an image of a simple food chain, like this one from the movie (timestamp: 3:41):
Prompt students to share their observations. Ask:
- How might these living things be connected?
- Based on the picture, why might the sun be important to living things?
Step 2: BUILD KNOWLEDGE
- Play the Food Chain movie.
- Click the pause button each time a question appears in Annie’s Notebook and discuss it as a class. Then play to see how Annie answers it.
TIP: The pause button turns red to remind you to pause.
Step 3: APPLY and ASSESS
Students take the Easy Quiz or Hard Quiz, demonstrating what they learned about the topic while applying essential literacy skills.
Step 4: DEEPEN and EXTEND
Students express what they learned about food chains while practicing essential literacy skills with one or more of the following activities. Differentiate by assigning ones that meet individual student or grade-level needs.
- Draw About It: Draw an herbivore in its habitat.
- Activity: Use the cards to make a food web.
- Talk About It: Brainstorm examples of animals that eat other animals, animals that eat plants, and animals that eat both.
- Write About It: Identify the energy source at the beginning of the food chain. Explain how energy moves through a food chain.
More to Explore
Habitats Unit: Continue to build understanding around different kinds of ecosystems by exploring more BrainPOP Jr. topics.
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