Lesson Plan Template School of Education Topic: Course: Science Unit: Interactions with Ecosystems Grade Level: 7 Teacher: Ms. Miller Date: October 7, 2019 Rationale - Curriculum Expectations: Overall Expectation(s) addressed: Specific Expectation(s) addressed: - Students will be able to identify producers, - Students should be able to understand that one consumers & decomposers in a local of the most important roles that green plants ecosystem and describe both their diversity have in any ecosystem is that of a being food and interactions (energy) source for consumers and decomposers. Learning Goal(s): - Investigate components of an ecosystem. - Understand the roles of producers, consumers and decomposers Success Criteria: - Define producer, consumer and decomposer - Create a food web depicting plants and animals in each group - Show how each of these groups of animals interact in an ecosystem Essential Questions for Lesson: 1. What makes up an ecosystem? 2. What are producers, consumers and decomposers? 3. How do they interact within an ecosystem? Time Minds-On 10:00 – 10:15 Activities / Planning - - Jigsaw Activity (review of last class): divide class into 5 groups of 4 students Hand out cue cards (I’ve left blank cue cards on my desk) Give each student in a group a different topic (listed below) and ask them to write all they know of that topic (if student is uncomfortable writing, they can draw or think of ideas in their head) o Primary producer o Primary consumer o Secondary consumer o Decomposer After they are done working on their cue cards, ask students to collaborate with other students from other groups who had the topic to form “expert groups” - Action (Who does what and when?) Include Specific Planned Assessments. 10:10 – 10:10 Have students discuss in their expert groups and add/make alterations to anything in their definitions Ask them to join their original groups again and each take a turn being the “expert” on their topic. Activity: - Deconstruct photo below (only showing animals & vegetation) and display on SMART board. (deconstructed photo is in on my desktop labelled ecosystem) - Ask students to arrange the animals (still deconstructed photo) in order to represent primary producers, primary consumers, secondary consumers, tertiary consumers and quaternary consumers. (End result should be similar to photo below). - Allow each willing student to add one photo to the chain. Discussion: 10:25 – 10:30 - Review their completed food chain and discuss with students as a class why they think this is the correct order. Ask them (by show hands) if they can think of any other animals that would fit in place of some of the animals shown in the diagram. Kinulation Activity (retrieved from Dr. Grant William) : - - 10:30 – 10:55 - - Explain to students that everyone is going to play a role in the ecosystem they are about to create. Have students form a big circle in the open space you have chosen for the class and begin handing out the nametags to students (found in yellow folder on my desk). Ask students to look around the circle and see if there are any names they haven’t heard of before. Have students explain to the class if they know the animal and others do not. Bring out the ball of yarn (on top of yellow folder on my desk) and tell students that they’re going to try and figure out connections between the different parts of their ecosystem (producers, consumers and decomposers). Make sure all students can see one another and the nametags in the circle. Randomly pick a student to start with the yarn. Tell this student that they are going to hold onto the string and roll the ball to someone else in the ecosystem they have a connection with. They have to explain the connection before the next person can go (ex: I am a bird and I eat mice) Remind students to keep the string tight while they are rolling the ball to other students. - - - Consolidation (refer to 10:55 – Handbook) 11:00 - - - Students should continue to do this, holding onto piece of the string every time it comes back to them (it may be passed to the same person more than once!). After everyone has been reached at least once, ask students what they think it looks like in the middle (a web, a trampoline, a net, etc.). Ask what they think it represents (relationships between everything in the ecosystem; everyone is connected). Ask students what would happen if all the people who are plants let go of the string? Have them actually drop the string and have everyone else continue to hold the string. What does this represent? What would happen without plants in our ecosystem? Are you connected to anything that eats plants? Have students return to seats and have them gather up their things and tell them that we’ll review our food chain exercise next class – ask them to write a paragraph summary on the food chain for homework. Ask students by a show of hands, who learned something about producers, consumers and decomposers that they hadn’t previously known. Ask them if they would feel comfortable if they had to teach what they learned to a friend. Re-iterate the fact that each animal in food webs play a key role in an ecosystem, and if we lose a species, then the entire ecosystem, can become unbalanced Exit slip to take home Accounting for Learner Diversity: - - For the first activity, if students are unable to use SMART board, they are able to be guided on an iPad with a class EA or teacher can print off the photos of the animals and have a student or EA help accommodated student arrange animals. If students have difficulties in participating in the second activity, an adult or other student may help the accommodated student roll the ball of yarn across the floor. If student does not feel comfortable playing in a large group, feel free to make two smaller groups (second ball of yarn in my top right desk drawer). Materials Needed: - SMART board Name tags (in yellow folder on my desk) Ball of yarn (on top of the yellow folder on my desk) References: https://www.kinulations.com Pearson Prentice Hall Biology, Chapter 20, pp.496-520 Pearson Principles of Classroom Management: A professional decision making model, pp. 187 195 Post-Lesson Reflections What worked? What didn't, and why? What to change for next time? - Students were not as engaged as I thought during the SMART board activity – I would perhaps change up the activity next time to make it more interactive for the whole class; I will try to sign out the iPads and let each student try arranging the animals in order on their own. - For the second activity, I would state consequences if students are not cooperating in rolling the ball of yarn right before beginning the activity - Overall, I believe the major points of the difference between producer, consumer and decomposer were understood by most, if not all of the class. Students seemed to enjoy working together with the ball of yarn to determine the order of the food chain. - Classroom management techniques for the lesson: o Seating to optimize using classroom space and allowing small group collaboration, but keeping noise to a minimum: FRONT OF CLASS o o If during the first 30 minutes of class, behavioral issues arise, such as surface behaviors (minor disruptions), teacher can try: Trying boosting the interest of the student by walking over to student and asking them to explain what they’re working on. Encouraging the other behaviors of students who are working well Redirecting the behavior of the student by asking them to come up to the board and do a question or answer a question. If during the kinulation, behavioral issues arise, teacher can try: Providing a non-punitive time out by asking the student if they need to go get a drink of water or ask them to do a chore that involves them stepping out of the kinulation. Proximity non-verbal interference by walking near the student and non-verbally letting them know the behavior is not tolerated.
