Introduction
This is a 3 or 4-day unit on food webs and relationships among organisms in an ecosystem. The summative assessment at the end of the unit can either be given on the 3rd day or could be saved for the 4th day, giving extra time for review and re-teaching as needed. There is a group project on day 3 that you could stretch to another day if you choose to take more time with that. Also, as a warm-up activity for this unit, the “Crash Course Kids” YouTube series is used. These are short, engaging videos that are perfect for middle school students. They are rich in information and content vocabulary. Links are provided.
If you don’t have the animal cards needed for these activities, you can easily google and print pictures and make them into cards.
Learning Objectives
- The learner will recognize different ecosystems and the features of different habitats.
- The learner will understand that animal adaptations help an animal survive in its habitat.
- The learner will differentiate among the three different types of relationships – mutualism, parasitic, and commensalism.
- The learner will identify the relationships within a food web.
- The learner will relate the effects of the relationships to the food web.
For the full lesson plan, download the PDF.
