The Arizona STEM Acceleration Project

Organisms in Food Webs

Organisms in

Food Webs

A 6th grade STEM lesson

Susie Herman

May 19, 2023

Notes for Teachers

• Context: This lesson takes place in a classroom for one hour.
• Students may work in individually or in pairs.
• Facilitate discussion on how Morris changed his food web.
• Emphasis on target project - the construction of a food web that shows the positions of different organisms within it.
• Make sure that students realize that they need to include:

1. The sun

2. Decomposers

3. Producers

4. Primary Consumers

5. Secondary Consumers

6. Tertiary Consumers

National Geographic article to refer to.

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• Save each food web for Lesson 3: Energy within a food web lesson.

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List of Materials

• Magazines
• Chromebooks
• Morris Mole by Dan Yaccarino
• Morris Mole by Dan Yaccarino
• Poster Paper
• Scissors
• Glue

Standards

Develop an understanding of forces and energy and how energy can transfer from one object to another or be converted from one form to another. They also develop an understanding of the nature of matter

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Standards

Life Science

6.L2U3.11

6.L2U3.12

6.L2U1.13

6.L2U1.14

Physical Science

6.P1U1.1

6.P1U1.2

6.P1U1.3

6.P2U1.4

6.P4U2.5

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Construct scientific explanations of how energy from the Sun is transferred through ecosystems

Science and Engineering Practices

and Portrait of a Graduate

● ask questions

● gather information from observations

● reason about information and connect it to scientific ideas

● communicate their understanding and reasoning

● solve problems creatively

● think critically

● work cooperatively in teams

● use technology

● value lifelong learning

Objective(s):

Today students will determine likely positions that different organisms have in food webs.

Agenda (120 minutes)

Phenomena: Why are bigger animals on the top of a food web?

Read: Morris Mole by Dan Yaccarino

Create a food web that shows organisms in various positions on the web.

Show the diagrams from Ocean Tracks and discuss how they compare to their food webs.

Pair students up to make any changes to their webs to accurately represent organisms within a food web.

Play Forest Food Web Game

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Phenomena

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Why do organisms depend on other organisms for survival?

Hands-on Activity Instructions

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• Read Aloud Morris the Mole
• Students will use magazine, newspapers, or clipart to create their own food web.

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Instructions

Individually, or with a partner, create a food web that consists of various organisms in their relative positions.

Criteria:

• Creation must be presented to the class as a final assessment with reasons why you put the organisms in the web where you did.
• Must include at least 10 organisms in web.
• Must be fanciful.

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Constraints:

• Sixty minutes to create your food web
• Use materials provided
• Chromebooks, poster paper, magazines, newspapers, scissors, glue, art supplies, construction paper

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Assessment

Food Web Creation

Forest Food Web Game results

Differentiation

1. Support students understanding of Food webs by showing a background video to support the scientific vocabulary.
2. Have students work in pairs.
3. Print out various organisms that students could cut out instead of researching themselves.
4. Make an anchor chart showing the components of a food web:
1. The Sun
2. Decomposers
3. Producers
4. Primary Consumers
5. Secondary Consumers
6. Tertiary Consumers

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Remediation

Extension/Enrichment

A few ways to enrich this lesson would be to:

1. Have students create a model of a section of their food web with captions showing the organisms role.
2. If students finish any of the activities with time to spare they can construct a puzzle with the vocabulary or create a self selected project showing their learning.
3. Students could play more rounds of Forest Food Web Game
4. Students could use Code.org to learn how to code a food web.

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