Lesson Plan 11

Subject/Grade: Grade 7 Science Lesson/ Date: April 3, 2017

Room: Mr. Bakers Room Time: 1:51-2:34

Stage 1: Desired Results

GLEs: Students will:
1 interactions and interdependencies
2 producers, consumers, decomposers
3 nutrient cycles and energy flow
SLEs: Students will:
1b) describe examples of interaction and interdependency within an ecosystem (e.g., identify
examples of dependency between species, and describe adaptations involved; identify changing
relationships between humans and their environments, over time and in different culturesas, for
example, in aboriginal cultures)
2a) analyze an ecosystem to identify biotic and abiotic components, and describe interactions among
these components
2b) analyze ecosystems to identify producers, consumers and decomposers; and describe how energy
is supplied to and flows through a food web, by:
i) describing and giving examples of energy and nutrient storage in plants and animals
ii) describing how matter is recycled in an ecosystem through interactions among plants,
animals, fungi, bacteria and other microorganisms
iii) interpreting food webs, and predicting the effects of changes to any part of a web
Learning Students will:
Objectives 1 Identify how energy travels through an ecosystem
2 Predict the effects of a change in a food web
3 Interpret a food pyramid

Stage 2: Assessment Evidence

Formative Questions Summative N/A
Assessment Discussions Assessment
Review

Stage 3: Learning Experience

Prior to Email power point Resources to Computer
Lesson: Bring string Bring: String
Print forest cards Forest identity cards
Time: Content/Description Notes/Assessments:
1:51- 2:11 Introduction:
Hand in food web homework F
Discuss Food Web arrows: Arrows do not point to who is eaten, they point to
where the energy goes!
Food Web activity F
Each student gets a forest identity card. Think of your role in the forest:
think of something that depends on you and something you depend on.
Someone starts with a ball of string they hold one end and transfer the
ball to a factor that depends on them. Each person repeats this until
 everyone is connected.
Introduce situations: drought, disease has killed the foxes, too many trees
have been cut down, and the air is polluted. For each situation, someone
tugs on the string.
Ask who feels the tug. This is all the people who would be affected by
these situations
Body:
2:11-2:26 Work on questions regarding intro activity while small groups go back to F
record observations about snails.
Each group gets ONE MINUTE! We need to be quick!
Questions
1. When the water person tugged on the string, how many people felt it?
Did this surprise you? Why or why not?
2. In the other situations, how many people felt the tug? Again, did this
surprise you? Why or why not?
3. What is one thing you learned about food webs?
4. What is one thing you still dont completely understand about food webs?

2:26-2:31 Pyramid of numbers: Most specific. Shows how many organisms it takes to
feed another organism. This time you are not measuring how energy is
transferred but the total amount of food the predator eats.
The size of each level indicates the number of organisms at that level. There
are always more animals being eaten than are eating.
To find out how much energy is being transferred from one level of the
pyramid to the other, Biomass needs to be calculated. Biomass is the total of
all the organisms in the ecosystem. As you move up the pyramid, there is less
biomass. The most biomass is found at the base, where the producers are.
Why is there more biomass at the bottom than the top of a pyramid of
numbers?

2:31-2:34 Closure:
What do food webs show? F
Which way do the arrows on food webs point? F
What do food pyramids measure? F
Why does the bottom of a food pyramid have a bigger biomass than the F
top?
Stage 4: Reflection
What went well?
Clarification of which way food web arrows point.
Reorganizing how students recorded snail observations:
member of groups went back and shared their
observations with group. Cut down on crowding and
time!
Water
What could be done differently?
Lay out expectations more clearly so students know how to
act.
Further discussion on biomass.
Nuts/Berries
Squirrel Fox

Tree Air

Bee Mouse
Eagle Worm

Spider Fish

Bear Wolf
Deer Flower

Grass Sparrow

Rabbit Owl
Snake