Introduction
This is a WebQuest for grades 3-4.
It is meant to inform the students about food chains and the balance needed to
sustain them. It was designed to be
broken into sections, so the unit can be spread over multiple days. All of the worksheets, answer keys, and
specific directions are located on this page under each corresponding section.
Unit Notes and Process
Part 1 – Basic Components
Here is the worksheet
for definitions.
·
The answer key is linked in the evaluation section.
Part 2 – Applying the Basics
Here are the directions for the
Food Chain Game.
Part 3 – Food Chains all Over
Here is the food chain quiz.
Part 4 – Make Your Own
Bookmark
Materials:
Cut paper (8 ½” by 2 ¾”)
Magazines / coloring Items
Laminate (if you want to laminate the book marks)
Assign students to either the forest group or the ocean group. This way, they can focus their food chain
in one of the two areas, and you will be able to put them into groups where some
of their animals will overlap.
You can pre-cut construction paper or card stock to bookmark-sized
slices. If you cut it 8 ½” by 2 ¾”
you can get 4 bookmarks from an 8 ½“ by 11” piece of paper.
You can also have the students draw or collage the pictures. National Geographic magazines, or animal
magazines both provide a lot of options.
There should be 1 producer and 3 consumers depicted. Instruct the students to label their
animals in cursive. All names should
be spelled correctly.
Part 5 – Team Up
Food Web
Materials:
Poster board (1 per group)
Yarn (enough per group)
Glue (1 or 2 per group)
Magazines/coloring items (1 or 2 per group)
Pencils or marker (1 per
person)
Assign your students to groups of 4. Make sure they are all in the same
starting group: forest or ocean.
Each group will need some yarn, glue, poster board, magazines or
coloring items, and a pencil.
You can also have the students draw or collage the pictures. National Geographic magazines, or animal
magazines both provide a lot of options.
Instruct the students to use the yarn as a connection between the
animals. This will help illustrate
the relationship between predator and prey.
Instruct the students to label each animal and its role in the food
web.
Evaluation
Unit points break down:
Definition Worksheet: 100 points
Food Chain Quiz: 100 points
Food Chain Game: 100 points
Book Mark: 100 points
Poster Food Web: 200 points
Here is the answer key for
the definition worksheet
Here is the answer key for the
food chain quiz
*With this quiz, there is 50 points built in.
You can change it to each question being worth 10 points each to balance it out.
The food chain game can be based on completion as well as good
sportsmanship.
Here is the grading rubric for the bookmark.
Here is the grading rubric for the poster:
SOLs
Here is a link to the complete list of
http://www.doe.virginia.gov/go/Sols/home.shtml
SOLs covered in this WebQuest:
Third Grade
Science
3.5 The student
will investigate and understand relationships among organisms in aquatic and
terrestrial food chains. Key concepts include
a)
producer, consumer, decomposer;
b)
herbivore, carnivore, omnivore; and
c)
predator and prey.
3.6 The student
will investigate and understand that environments support a diversity of plants
and animals that share limited resources. Key concepts include
a)
water-related environments (pond, marshland, swamp, stream, river,
and ocean environments);
b)
dry-land environments (desert, grassland, rain forest, and forest
environments);
3.8
The student will investigate and understand basic patterns and
cycles occurring in nature. Key concepts include
b)
animal and plant life cycles.
3.10 The student will investigate
and understand that natural events and human influences can affect the survival
of species. Key concepts include
a)
the interdependency of plants and animals;
Math
3.24 The student will recognize and
describe a variety of patterns formed using concrete objects, numbers, tables,
and pictures, and extend the pattern, using the same or different forms
(concrete objects, numbers, tables, and pictures).
3.25 The student will
a) investigate and create patterns
involving numbers, operations (addition and multiplication), and relations that
model the identity and commutative properties for addition and multiplication
English
3.7
The student will demonstrate
comprehension of information from a variety
of print resources.
a)
Use dictionary, glossary,
thesaurus, encyclopedia, and other reference books, including online reference
materials.
b)
Use available technology.
3.8
The student will write legibly in cursive.
3.11
The student will edit writing for correct grammar, capitalization, punctuation,
and spelling.
h) Use correct
spelling for high-frequency sight words, including irregular plurals.
Technology
3-5.5 The student will demonstrate
knowledge of technologies that support collaboration, personal pursuits,
and productivity.
·
Understand how technology expands opportunities for learning.
3-5.6 The student will use technology
to locate, evaluate, and collect information from a variety of sources.
·
Collect information from a variety of sources.
Fourth Grade
Science
4.5 The student
will investigate and understand how plants and animals in an ecosystem interact
with one another and the nonliving environment. Key concepts include
a)
behavioral and structural adaptations;
b)
organization of communities;
c)
flow of energy through food webs;
d)
habitats and niches;
Math
4.21 The student will recognize,
create, and extend numerical and geometric patterns, using concrete materials,
number lines, symbols, tables, and words.
English
4.3
The student will read fiction and nonfiction with fluency and accuracy.
d) Use word-reference
materials, including the glossary, dictionary, and thesaurus.
4.6 The student
will demonstrate comprehension of information resources to research a topic.
b)
Collect information, using the resources of the media center,
including online, print, and media resources.
4.8
The student will edit writing for correct grammar, capitalization, spelling,
punctuation, and sentence structure.
h) Use correct spelling
for frequently used words, including common homophones.
Technology
3-5.5 The student will demonstrate
knowledge of technologies that support collaboration, personal pursuits,
and productivity.
·
Understand how technology expands opportunities for learning.
3-5.6 The student will use technology
to locate, evaluate, and collect information from a variety of sources.
· Collect information from a variety of sources.
Additional Resources
Here are more resources
based on food chains to use with this unit.
Books
The
By: Pat Relf
ISBN: 0590484141
This Magic School Bus book takes the students through all of the steps in the
food chain.
Who Eats What? Food
Chains and Food Webs
By: Patricia Lauber
ISBN: 0064451305
“Besides showing who eats what in the wild, it brings the food chain idea closer
to home with the suggestion that children draw pictures showing the chains for
the things they eat, such as their milk, which came from a cow, which ate
grass.”
Websites
Here you can find another short film about food chains narrated by a computer
animated woman. It has a lot of
definitions and ends with a small quiz.
http://www.kidsknowit.com/interactive-educational-movies/free-online-movies.php?movie=Food%20Chains
This Food Chain Game starts out simple and gradually gets slightly harder.
http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/content/animals/kidscorner/foodchain/foodchain2.htm
At this website the students can plug the members in the correct places in the
pre-existing food chain. It is
harder than the other game, but it can be simplified by using the “hint”
feature.
http://www.harcourtschool.com/activity/food/food_menu.html
This website offers real photographs of the animals in a food chain.
http://www.qrg.northwestern.edu/projects/marssim/simhtml/info/whats-a-herbivore.html
This website has a lot of other food chain references if you are looking for
something in particular.
http://www.picadome.fcps.net/lab/currl/food_chain/default.htm
Song
This song is to a familiar tune, which can help teach the students about food
chains.
http://www.songsforteaching.com/scienceinsong/foodchain.htm
Credits
This WebQuest was created by Kelly Henaghan for Virginia Agriculture in the
Classroom. WebQuests are made
possible through a grant from Monsanto.
Last revised: September,
2008
© 2008 Agriculture in the
Classroom; All Rights Reserved