Library Connections
Grade 3, 4th OI
Where Have All the Sparrows Gone? Food Chains/Ecosystems
TEKS SCI3.9 (3.9) Organisms and environments. The student knows that organisms have characteristics that help
them survive and can describe patterns, cycles, systems, and relationships within the environments. The student is
expected to: (B) identify and describe the flow of energy in a food chain and predict how changes in a food chain
affect the ecosystem such as removal of frogs from a pond or bees from a field. (C) describe environmental changes
such as floods and droughts where some organisms thrive and others perish or move to new locations
Organizing Idea / Activity: Systems
Learning Target: I can predict how changes in a food chain affect the ecosystem.
Materials / Resources:
 Sparrow Girl (E PEN) by Sara Pennypacker
 “My Endangered Animal” graphic organizer handout
 Set of The Grolier Student Encyclopedia of Endangered Animals (or other encyclopedia
with endangered animals pre-marked for students)
 Marker board
Note: This is a 2-part lesson, each part lasting 30 minutes each.
Procedure
Engage
As a class, using the maker board create/draw a food chain for a particular animal. Solicit
reasons for what might happen to the chain if one of the links was taken out.
Explore
Remind students that humans sometimes interfere with food chains in nature, sometimes with
dire consequences. Students will listen to the book Sparrow Girl. Ask questions: Why do you
think Ming Li cared about the sparrows more than the other people in the village? What other
animals do you think would be affected by the death of the sparrows (e.g. predators of
sparrows)? What better solution could there be to the problem of the sparrows eating too much
grain?
Explain
Lead a discussion of how the food chain was affected by the huge decrease in the sparrow
population; introduce the vocabulary word “endangered” and ask students if they feel that the
sparrows were endangered.
Elaborate
-at end of Day 1 lesson or beginning of Day 2 lesson
Introduce the My Endangered Animal graphic organizer and the encyclopedia that will be used
to look up an endangered animal and fill in the organizer; model the filling-in for one animal if
time. Either working in pairs or alone, students will fill in the graphic organizer using an
encyclopedia.
Alternate Extension Activity: Divide students into two groups: farmers and sparrows. Students
will create an advertisement to showcase their perspective about the grain issue – sparrows
want to eat the grain and farmers want to protect the grain. Students may make a poster, public
service announcement, or skit defending their point of view.
Evaluate
If time, students can present their work to the class; completed graphic organizers should show
appropriate information about endangered animals in the boxes.
Library Speak graphic organizer, endangered