My students need the two Food Chain activities, Ecosystems Challenge and Into the Forest Natures Food Chain Game to have a first hand, clear experience with food chains in an environment.
This project is a part of the Hispanic & Latinx Heritage Month celebration because
it supports a Latino teacher or a school where the majority of students are Latino.
My Students
Students in our urban area have limited ideas of food chains and how environments effect the health of all species in that food chain. They know food is grown in the grown or bought at the grocery store; but lack experiences with knowing where various animals fall in a food chain.
Our students are from a high crime, high poverty area of a large city, which means their time outdoors observing nature and their habits is very limited.
They buy food at the store and a few raise vegetables in their yard in the summer. The idea of predators and prey and consumers is very limited. My students learn best when doing hands-on activities so teaching the concepts of environment, habitat and food chains is weak without the activities I have requested.
My Project
Students will be engaged in learning about food chains as well as specific animals and their behaviors while doing these two activities. The activity sets will reinforce each other making their learning deeper and richer.
Students will work in groups of four as they work through the activity. To begin we will go over the concept as a class and I will provide some general examples on the board using themselves as the predators (eater of fish for example) and working backwards to the smallest consumer and finally plants and the sun. Then they will use the activity cards to learn of other food chains.
Students will finally make a poster of one complete food chain from what they learned and present it to the class.
These activity sets provide concrete examples of food chains while providing meaningful information about each specie in the food chain examples.
This will allow them to grasp the concepts of food chain and allow to me move this new understanding to include "what if" something happens to the balance in a food chain, so students become aware of the delicacy of food chains and the importance of preserving environments and habitats for the health of all involved.
Nearly all students from low‑income households
Data about students' economic need comes from the National Center for Education Statistics, via our partners at MDR Education. Learn more
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Breitberg NBCT and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
