Food Webs Lesson Plan: Describe movement of energy through an ecosystem

Grade Levels: 3-5, 6-8, 9-12

This lesson accompanies the BrainPOP topic Food Webs, and addresses the standard of describing the movement of energy through an ecosystem from an initial producer. Students demonstrate understanding through a variety of creative projects.

Step 1: ACTIVATE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

Display an image of a food chain, and an image of a food web. Ask:

What do you think these show?

How are these alike? How do they differ? 

Step 2: BUILD BACKGROUND

  • Read aloud the description below the Movie player.
  • Play the Movie, pausing to check for understanding. 
  • Have students read one of the two Related Reading articles. Partner them with someone who read a different article to share what they learned with each other.

Step 3: APPLY
Students synthesize their ideas and express them through one or more of the following creative projects. They can work individually or collaborate.  

  • Make-a-Movie: Tell the story of a single food chain within a food web from an ecosystem of your choice. Begin with the first link, the producer, and describe the sequence, from primary consumer to secondary consumer, and so on.  
  • Make-a-Map: Make a concept map that models a food web for a specific ecosystem. Identify producers, primary consumers, and secondary consumers, and the role of each 
  • Creative Coding: Code a sorting game in which players sort living and nonliving components of an ecosystem into their role in a food web model.  

Step 4: REFLECT & ASSESS 

Reflect: After sharing creative projects with each other, students reflect on what they’ve learned about food webs.  Prompt them by asking questions such as: 

  • How are the primary consumers in the deep-sea ecosystem similar to those in land ecosystems? How are they different? 
  • How can models like food webs help people understand complex systems?

Assess: Wrap up the lesson with the Food Webs Quiz.

Step 5:  EXTEND LEARNING

Deepen understanding of food webs by playing the game Food Fight. 

Lesson Plan Common Core State Standards Alignments

Related:

    Filed as:  3-5, 6-8, 9-12, BrainPOP, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.11-12.1, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.3.1, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.3.3, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.4.1, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.4.3, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.4.7