Water Lesson Plans
This page contains five lesson plans:
Water Hunt,
Creek Crusaders,
Salinity Scene,
Tidal Talent, and
Energy Quest. You may scroll through them below or click on one of the above to go directly to that lesson.
Water Hunt
Activity Description: Using everyday objects, students will create a tangible method to investigate world water distribution.
Learning Objective: Students will be able to demonstrate that fresh water is a limited resource.
Background Information:
Water Cycle Overview
Water is never static and is constantly changing forms. The water cycle is the movement of solid, liquid, or gaseous water through the environment and is driven by gravity and heat energy. Water also moves within organisms, especially plants.
Although much of the Earth is covered in water, very little is available for consumption?97% is found in oceans, 2% is trapped in ice, 0.5% is in the bodies of plants and animals, and 0.5% is freshwater.
Watershed Overview
A watershed is a specific area where precipitation, sediments, and dissolved materials drain into a common body of water, such as a river, bay or ocean. It is also called a drainage basin.
The Chesapeake Bay watershed encompasses the District of Columbia and six states: Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. The watershed covers 64,000 square miles.
Life within a Stream
Biodiversity is variety in the living things in a particular area. A stream with high biodiversity (microorganisms, macroinvertebrates, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and plants), would, in turn, support a high biodiversity of land-dwelling organisms (microorganisms, macroinvertebrates, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, birds, rodents, plants, and fungi).
Microorganisms are single-celled life-forms that are too small to be seen without the use of a microscope. Stream microorganisms include bacteria, amoebas, protozoans, and some algae.
Macroinvertebrates are organisms that lack a backbone or any internal bones and are large enough to be seen with the naked eye. Stream macroinvertebrates include crayfish, leeches, snails, and insects such as caddisflies, diving beetles, and dragonflies. These organisms usually attach to leaf litter or rocks and can spend all or part of their lives in water, especially in their immature stages (larvae or nymphs).
Scientists use physical measurements such as pH, turbidity, dissolved oxygen, and nitrate (nitrogen) concentrations and macroinvertebrate biodiversity as indicators of water quality.
Pollution and its Effects on Macroinvertebrates
Pollution is any physical, chemical, or biological alteration of air, water, or land that is harmful to living organisms. Point-source pollution comes from easily discernible sources, such as direct input of sludge from factories. Non-point source pollution comes from diffuse sources, such as indirect input of sediment and fertilizers from agricultural settings or runoff from urban areas. It is often difficult determine whether pollution (such as changes in water temperature or the introduction of an alien species) comes from point or nonpoint sources.
Different species of macroinvertebrates have varying tolerances to pollution. Over time, streams that encounter pollution will have decreased macroinvertebrate biodiversity. Macroinvertebrates that are intolerant of pollution will be eliminated, giving tolerant organisms more resources to live and reproduce.
Pollution is usually caused by human actions. Because freshwater resources are very scarce, water needs to be protected and conserved. People can greatly improve water quality by altering their habits.
Materials You Will Need:
- 100 pieces of pasta (zitti, penne or rigatoni)
- 1 bucket or large container
- 3 markers, blue, brown, and green
- Small cups, one for each student
- World map
Procedure
Discuss water distribution on the Earth. Is there water in the air? Is water in the oceans different from water in streams and rivers? How much water is available for consumption?
Place 100 pieces of pasta in a bucket or large container. Explain that the pasta represents all the water in the world (100%). Place a world map on the floor and have students sit in a circle around the map. Ask students to identify a few places where water is found. Ask a student to find water in the form of ice (polar ice caps) and ask another student to think about whether water is found in places not on the map (in weather systems). Ask these two students to color a piece of the pasta blue to represent the 2% of the world?s water in ice and weather systems. Return the two pieces of pasta to the bucket.
Do plants, humans and other animals have water in their bodies? Is water found underground? Ask a student to color one half of a piece of pasta brown to represent the 0.5% of the world?s water in these forms. Return the piece of pasta to the bucket.
Where is all the fresh water? Have a student find a river and a lake on the map. Are streams, ponds, and aquifers found on the map? Can fresh water be found in these places? Ask a student to color one half of a piece of pasta green to represent the 0.5% of the world?s available fresh water. Return the piece of pasta to the bucket.
Remove the map from the floor and place the bucket of pasta in the center of the circle. Mix the colored pasta in with the plain pasta and explain that the students are going to hunt for fresh water to drink. Give each student a small cup. One at a time, allow students to dip their cups into the bucket without looking. Keep doing this until all the pasta has been collected.
Remove the bucket and replace the world map. Begin putting the pasta on the map, placing the blue pieces on the north and south poles, the brown piece on any landmass, and the green piece on any body of fresh water. The rest of the pasta should be placed on the oceans to represent salt water.
Review the map and the percentages of water found in ice and weather systems (2%), in plants and animals and underground (0.5%), in bodies of fresh water (0.5%), and in the oceans (97%). Stress the importance of fresh water for humans, other animals, and plants. Is fresh water necessarily clean? How do humans affect water quality?
In Addition
Make a permanent 3-D map! Glue pasta to a world map traced onto a piece of paper.
More Ideas
Be a water droplet! Find a mountain range on a world map. Ask students to make the sound of a thunderstorm by snapping, clapping, and pounding their feet, or listen to a recording of a storm. What happens to the rain after it falls on the mountain range? Have students create a play or write a short story depicting their journey from the mountains to streams, rivers, lakes, or the ocean. Introduce the concept of the water cycle and ask students to include travels through evaporation and condensation.
Create a mini-water cycle in your classroom using a hotplate, a pan, ice, a plate, and an oven mitt. How can these items demonstrate the water cycle? Form hypotheses. Melt the ice and allow the water to boil. Ask students to observe the water vapor. Hold the plate ten inches over the pan?s surface using the oven mitt, and ask students to observe condensation. Watch as the condensed water cools and precipitates. Check hypotheses and form conclusions. If the mini-water cycle was permanently installed (hotplate left on, plate held in place), would the water continue cycling indefinitely?
Creek Crusaders
Description: Students will write letters to public and private offices concerning their area of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Creek Crusaders is adapted from Chesapeake Bay Foundation?s Watershed Address.
Learning Objectives: Students will increase their awareness of their geographical location and will be able to list at least two problems and associated solutions affecting the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Students will also learn the role of the individual in environmental reform.
Background Information:
Water Pollution
The main sources of water pollution are agriculture, municipal wastes, acid rain, and industry.
Water pollution from agriculture has several forms, including increased sedimentation and nutrient deposition (eutrophication). Soils eroded from agricultural lands are carried by runoff and enter streams, rivers and oceans where they accumulate. Eutrophication is a build-up of nutrients in aquatic systems, usually because of overenrichment from the use of fertilizers.
Municipal wastes include garbage and sewage. Water pollution in the form of garbage is easy to recognize?plastics, Styrofoam, old tires, roofing materials, aluminum, food debris and glass litter most aquatic systems. Approximately ten million tons of solid wastes are discharged into the ocean each year (Laws, 2000). Domestic sewage treatment has traditionally meant discharging effluent into lakes, streams, and rivers. Sewage contains suspended solids, nutrients, and chemicals.
Acid rain is caused by pollutants entering the atmosphere and returning as precipitation. No plant or animal can escape the effects of acid rain, as all surface and ground water depend on precipitation for replenishment.
Water pollution from industry includes increases in water temperature and discharged toxins. Factories often use water as a coolant and then pump it back into the body of water from which it was taken. Effluents also may contain toxins. Toxins are any chemical, physical, or biological agent that causes disease or some change in the normal structure and function of an organism. Toxins also leach into ground water from industrial holding tanks.
Toxicology Overview
The effects of toxins vary, depending on if the toxin has action at the sight of contact (local), or if the action takes place within an organism?s body (systemic). In general, systemic toxins are much more common and more destructive than contact toxins, often adversely affecting entire organs or organs systems.
Toxins enter an organism?s body by one of several routes: some may be inhaled; some may be ingested in food and water; others are absorbed through the skin. Toxins have various effects after they enter a body. Toxins such as mercury and arsenic can block enzyme activity. Other systemic toxins can bind to molecules directly. For example, carbon monoxide binds to hemoglobin in red blood cells, blocking the ability to bind to oxygen. Last, systemic toxins can cause mutations by interacting with the structure of cellular DNA (Chiras, 1994). Regardless of the mode of action, the actual toxicity of a substance is a function of its biological activity?the more reactive it is, the more effect it has.
Two factors that profoundly influence toxicity are bioaccumulation and biological magnification. Bioaccumulation is the buildup of certain chemicals within tissues and organs of the body. For example, scallops and other mollusks feed on material suspended in water, and therefore also ingest suspended heavy metals, like cadmium. The level of cadmium in scallops found in polluted water may be 2.3 million times that of scallops found in clean water (Chiras, 1994). While these concentrations do not always cause immediate problems for organisms, they wreak havoc on those organisms that consume them. Such is the case with DDT (a chlorinated hydrocarbon). DDT is resistant to breakdown and is fat soluble, remaining in body fat permanently. The concentration of DDT therefore becomes magnified?at each level of the food chain, the concentrations increase substantially. For example, an osprey that eats small fish, that have eaten zooplankton, that have absorbed DDT from seawater, may have several million times greater concentrations of DDT than the seawater. Biological magnification exposes organisms high on the food chain to potentially dangerous levels of persistent toxins (Chiras, 1994).
Monitoring Water Pollution
Living organisms are excellent indices of the amount and types of pollution in the environment. Plants and animals are continually exposed to pollutants and act as long-term indicators. Animals, in particular, show a wide range of responses (Jenkins, 1971). Scientists monitor animal responses in a variety of ways. Animal survey is a commonly used method, although animal populations can change in response to many factors other than pollution, such as disease, climate, and food supply. A second method of monitoring animal responses is the study of indicator species. An indicator species is any organism whose presence can be taken as evidence of a particular condition. A third method is the study of species diversity in a particular area, commonly referred to as biodiversity.
Predatory fish and birds are often used to monitor water pollution, since they are particularly subject to bioaccumulation. Loss of higher-level predatory fish results in large populations of undesirable forage fish (Jenkins, 1971). Surveys of catch records can reveal changes in fish populations. Breeding and nesting surveys of predatory birds such as eagles are good indicators of pesticide contamination. Bird banding and migration studies also contribute to knowledge on the abundance and activity of migratory and other birds (Jenkins, 1971).
Fish are adversely affected by pesticides (particularly DDT), heavy metals such as mercury and cadmium, and severe eutrophication (Jenkins, 1971). Shellfish and aquatic marcoinvertebrates are used to monitor water pollution and serve as excellent biological indicators. Macroinvertebrate biodiversity can be surveyed and is a reliable source for determining the degree and nature of water pollution. Sessile (non-moving) benthic organisms are particularly susceptible to heated effluents (Laws, 2000), and are also highly vulnerable to heavy metal contamination.
Materials You Will Need:
- Map of your area including all water ways (as detailed as possible)
- Pens or pencils, paints and markers
- Recycled paper
- Creek Crusaders Contact List
- Large recycled envelopes and stamps
Procedure
Review or introduce the different parts of a letter and general letter writing guidelines. Why do people write letters?
Have students locate their home or school on the map and search for nearby creeks or streams. Do the creeks or streams feed into large rivers? Do the rivers empty into a bay?
Create a watershed addresses by substituting the names of the nearest waterways for each student?s street or school address. Include all waterways on the path to the bay. For example: Jane Smith P.R. Harris Elementary School Oxon Run, Oxon Cove, Potomac River, Chesapeake Bay
Have each student visualize his or her watershed address for a few minutes. What are some of its positive attributes? What are some of its problems? How do humans negatively impact their watershed? What role does pollution have? List answers on a blackboard.
Encourage students to think of solutions to any problems noted. What are some positive ways that humans can impact their watershed? List solutions/actions next to the problems. Try to be as specific as possible.
Who would the students like to send their letters to? Which public or private institutions should be contacted? Choose one or two of the best organizations to contact for the solutions/actions provided. See Creek Crusaders Contact List for public and private office information. Give students a few minutes to address their letters and write greetings.
In the body of the letter, students can write about a topic generated in Step 4, but encourage students to consider a topic that they have experienced first hand. For example, students may wish to write about the disposal of trash in their neighborhood or the use of toxic cleansers in their school?s cafeteria. If students focus on a problem in their watershed, make sure that they include a specific solution. Also remind students to frame their letters in a positive context. For extra inspiration, give them a copy of a letter written by you.
Invite students to illustrate their letters. Make them colorful!
Write a cover letter for the office(s) selected. Introduce yourself and your class and the general purpose for writing the letters. If possible, discuss why that particular office was selected. Include a response date and your return address. Mail letters that are going to the same office in one large envelope. If the letters are mailed from your school, allow students to drop the envelopes in the mailbox, or drop them by your school?s office. Mark a classroom calendar with your requested response dates, and await a response!
In Addition
Students may choose to send their letters via electronic mail. For letter-writing assistance, see How to Communicate with Congress (Vance, 1999).
Encourage students to share their letters with another class in their school.
More Ideas
Review the different branches of government with your students. What are the roles and responsibilities of each branch? Who has the most influence in creating and enforcing environmental policies?
Letter writing is just one of many ways to become involved in environmental change. For fun and inspiration, read books or watch popular videos that depict children "making a difference."
Appendix: Who to Contact
United States Environmental Protection Agency
Region 3
1650 Arch Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103-2029
DC Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton
2136 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-5100
Environment and Public Works Committee
Sen. Harry Reid, Chairman
410 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510
Virginia Senator John Warner, Environment and Public Works Committee Member
225 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
www.dcwatch.com
This site provides contact information for local agencies and neighborhood associations.
www.k12.dc.us
This site provides contact information for school board members and other individuals involved in school administration.
Salinity Scene
Description: Students will mix salt and water to recreate salinity levels found in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Students will then be challenged to decorate maps of the Chesapeake Bay depicting salinity levels.
Learning Objectives: Students will understand the concept of salinity, and will be able to identify fresh, brackish and salt water. Students will be able to locate salinity levels on a map of the Chesapeake Bay.
Background Information:
Estuary Overview
The Chesapeake Bay is an estuary. An estuary is a partially enclosed body of water where salt water from the ocean mixes with fresh water from creeks, streams and rivers. Estuaries are places of constant environmental change. Animals that can survive and adapt to these changes grow rapidly and produce large populations (Karleskint, 1998).
Although estuaries contain fewer resident animal species than either marine or freshwater ecosystems, estuaries serve as nurseries for many organisms. About 85% of the fishes and shellfishes that are sold in world commercial markets spend all or part of their lives in estuaries (Karleskint, 1998). This is due to high primary productivity?the production of chlorophyll containing life forms. Plants and plant-like organisms serve as the basis for all food chains, and provide shelter for juveniles.
Estuary Features
The physical features of estuaries include changing salinity, water temperature, turbidity, and pH. These features interact with tides and weather.
Salinity is the number of grams of salt dissolved in 1000 grams of water, but is usually expressed as parts per thousand (ppt). Ocean water averages 35 grams of dissolved salt per 1000 grams water?a salinity of 35 ppt. Freshwater ranges from 0-5 ppt while estuaries range from 5-30 ppt (brackish).
Water temperatures vary from surface to bottom layers. Surface layers (shallow water) are warmed by the sun?s energy, while bottom layers (deep water) are cooler.
Turbidity refers to the amount of suspended material in water. Sediments, agricultural runoff, algae, and plankton often cloud water in estuaries.
pH is a measure of the acidity or alkalinity of a solution. The pH scale ranges from 0-14; pure water is neutral (pH of 7). pH levels change in estuaries because of acid rain and agricultural runoff.
Tides are movements of water due to the gravitational pull of the moon and sun. Tides influence water depth and create currents.
Weather is created by the uneven heating of the earth by the sun. Weather drives the water cycle, and therefore is responsible for evaporation, condensation, and precipitation.
The Chesapeake Bay as an Estuary
The Chesapeake Bay is the largest estuary in the United States and one of the largest and most productive in the world. The Chesapeake Bay supports over 2,700 species of plants and animals, including oysters, blue crabs and over 200 species of fish, many of which are commercially valuable. There are several characteristics that influence this productivity. First, the Chesapeake Bay is shallow. Shallow waters allow sunlight to reach the substrate level, which increases the distribution of rooted aquatic plants. Second, several major rivers empty into the Bay, discharging fresh water, nutrients, and dissolved oxygen. Further, strong freshwater inflow and vigorous tides from the Atlantic Ocean drive water circulation, which prevents overenrichment from agricultural and urban runoff. Last, the Bay has a gentle slope, which allows plants to grow in partially submerged habitats along its boundaries (White, 1989).
Although these four characteristics help to make the Chesapeake Bay highly productive, they also interact with its physical features (changing salinity, water temperature, turbidity, and pH) and weather and tides, making the Bay a stressful habitat for many organisms. Fortunately, most of these stressful interactions occur on a seasonal basis, allowing various species to thrive in the Bay during specific months of the year (White, 1989). Few species are physiologically adapted to permanently reside in the Bay?s dynamic environment (White, 1989). Life in the Chesapeake Bay is amazing! Each physical feature creates zones that support unique communities of plants and animals (White, 1989).
Materials You Will Need:
- 21 nine ounce paper cups
- 7 paper clips, straightened
- Table salt, 1 _ cups minimum
- Tap water
- Map of the Chesapeake Bay
- Pens, pencils, paints or markers
Procedure
What is salinity? Ask students to describe the way water in a river may taste compared to water in the ocean.
Divide students into seven groups and give each group three cups and a paper clip. Have each group pour cup salt into one of the cups and fill another with 1 cup clean water. Punch holes in the bottom of the third cup with straightened paper clips. Group one should punch 5 holes to represent a salinity level of 5 parts per thousand (ppt), group two should punch 10 holes to represent a salinity level of 10 ppt, and so on, with group seven punching 35 holes.
All at the same time have groups pour the salt into the cups with holes (without moving these cups around) above the cups with water. Let the salt fall through for about 10 seconds, and then move the punched cups away from the water.
Have students compare the water in each of the cups, evaluating color, texture, taste, etc.
Give each student a map of the Chesapeake Bay. Using markers, pens, pencils or paints, have students decorate the map depicting salinity levels. Students may want to use different colors, hues of the same color, or dots (like the holes in the cup) to make the water look more or less salty. Stress that water in rivers is fresh (0-5 ppt), water in the Bay is brackish (5-30 ppt), and water in the ocean is salty (35 ppt).
In Addition
The number of groups can be adapted for different class sizes, as long as there are three groups to represent fresh, brackish and salt water.
More Ideas
Be watershed meteorologists! Monitor weather and tide conditions in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Search web sites like Eagles Nest, Ltd. (www.eaglesnest.net/weather/#bay and www.eaglesnest.net/tides.htm) or the Maryland Department of Natural Resources (www.dnr.state.md.us) for up to date information. Mark high and low tide data on a classroom calendar. How might a full moon affect the tides? Watch taped weather forecasting segments and challenge students to create their own T.V. weather program. Set up an official weather desk, make charts, and videotape the students in action.
Investigate watersheds in art! Auguste Renoir, Winslow Homer, Gustave Courbet, and Maurice Brazil Prednergast are just a few of the thousands of artists that have included rivers, bays, marshes, and oceans in their artwork! Search the National Gallery of Art web page, www.nga.gov, by subject, or visit other museum websites. Make copies of famous watershed paintings and display them on a wall. Locate the watersheds depicted in the paintings on a world map or globe. Learn more about the artists and their genre. Visit an art gallery!
If students used dots to represent salinity levels on their maps, discuss pointillism?a technique made famous by Georges Seurat in the 1800?s that uses many small dots to create a large picture. Create a web page to display students? artwork. Check www.lamstras.k12.pa.us/hherr/Pointalism/home.htm (or similar websites) to see student examples of pointillism.
Read a brief and interesting description of a plant or animal that lives in the Chesapeake Bay watershed to each group (see Creature Features for examples). Use descriptions that will help students form mental images. Then have students draw pictures of those organisms and cut them out. Have students tape or tack their pictures to a bulletin board to create a Bay display! Compare the students? drawings to pictures of the plants and animals. How do they compare?
Tidal Talent
Description: Students will create a classroom talent show by "becoming" animals found in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Students will review animal adaptations to varied habitats as they try to guess other students? identities.
Learning Objectives: Students will increase their awareness of the biodiversity in the Chesapeake Bay watershed and will associate biodiversity with animal physical features and behaviors. Students? vocabulary will also be enhanced as they identify animal species.
Materials You Will Need:
- Creature Features activity sheet
- Props such as paper bags, boxes, scarves, and paper towel tubes
- Blackboard and chalk or a large piece of paper and a marker
Procedure
Divide the class into teams of two or three students and assign an animal from Creature Features to each team. Give teams a few minutes to brainstorm actions and/or sounds (no words) that will imitate their creature. Then set out objects that can be used as props and challenge students to use their imaginations to transform the props into fins, claws, beaks, scales, etc.
Give each team a few minutes to act out their animal, while the remaining teams try to guess the animal?s identity.
More Ideas
No animal is an island! Challenge teams to create a food web with their assigned animals. Who eats whom? Initiate a hunt/chase game or create a food web play. Place special emphasis on imitating real animals?no personification allowed!
How does a white-fingered mud crab stalk its prey? Have you ever sat and watched the movements of a sea anemone? It is fascinating! Bring a fish tank into the classroom and observe the intricacies of animal behavior. Monitor behaviors for a two-week period. Do you think that the behaviors would be different if the animals were not in a fish tank? Are the animals? behaviors instinctive or learned?
Delve into the lifestyles of the wet and wild! Have teams research specific animals found in the Bay. What do they eat, how do they breed, are they threatened or endangered? Challenge teams to write short stories depicting "a day in the life of" their animal. How would the animal?s day change with changes in temperature or changes in tides? How is a cloudy sky connected to a striped killifish?
Energy Quest
Description: Play a variation of "Duck, Duck, Goose" that demonstrates the transfer of energy through trophic levels and emphasizes the interconnection of organisms within a food web.
Learning Objectives: Students will be capable of illustrating the transfer of energy within an ecosystem.
Background Information:
How Does Energy Flow Through Ecosystems?
An ecosystem is an array of organisms and their physical environment, interacting by a one-way flow of energy and a cycling of materials.
According to the first law of thermodynamics, the total amount of energy in the universe remains constant?energy is never lost, but changes form.
Energy flows into ecosystems from an outside source. Energy leaves an ecosystem as metabolic heat generated by every living organism at each energy transfer.
The energy source for most ecosystems on earth is the sun. Producers (plants) capture the sun?s energy.
Troph means feeding, therefore animals at different trophic levels are at different feeding or energy levels. Plants make their own food and are called autotrophs (literally, self-feeding), and animals that eat plants and other animals are called heterotrophs (literally, different-feeding). These animals are also called omnivores. Other designated trophic levels are insectivores, carnivores, herbivores, detritivores, and decomposers?insectivores are animals that eat insects, carnivores are animals that eat other animals, herbivores are animals that eat plants, detritivores are animals that eat dead and decaying matter, and decomposers are organisms that break down matter to its recyclable components.
Food chains are straight-line sequences in which energy is transferred from one trophic level to another. Food webs are complex interactions of food chains.
The trophic structure of an ecosystem is often represented in the form of an energy pyramid. Energy pyramids have a large base (producers) and show successive energy losses at each tier (consumers). Given the metabolic demands of organisms, only about 6 to 16 percent of the energy entering one trophic level becomes available for organisms at the next level. Because the efficiency is so low, ecosystems in general have no more than four consumer trophic levels (Starr, 2000).
Energy Flow in the Chesapeake Bay
The Chesapeake Bay is an ecosystem. Energy flows into the Bay from the sun, and exits as metabolic heat. The Chesapeake Bay is also a large food web. Like other ecosystems, the Chesapeake Bay is very complex?each organism interacts with other organisms and with the physical environment.
An ecosystem?s health depends on the health of the organisms within it. The health of the Chesapeake Bay is at large. For example, over-harvesting, loss of reef habitat, pollution and disease has dramatically decreased the Bay?s oyster populations. Current populations are one percent of oyster populations a century ago. If oyster populations continue to decline, hundreds of organisms, including grass shrimp, amphipods, anemones, barnacles, oyster drills, mud crabs and red beard sponges will be lost. Loss of these animals will, in turn, cause other populations to decline, such as striped bass, weakfish, black drum, croaker, and blue crabs. Oysters also filter water. With decreased oyster populations, many organisms will be lost.
Materials You Will Need:
- 5" x 2" Sticky labels
- Markers
Procedure
Prepare labels. On five different labels, write the following food chain categories: producer, herbivore, primary carnivore, secondary carnivore, and omnivore. Repeat, depending on the class size.
Review food chain vocabulary with students. What are trophic levels? How does energy flow through food chains?
Take the class to an open space large enough for students to sit in smaller groups. Divide the students into complete food chain groups (one each producer, herbivore, primary carnivore, secondary carnivore, and omnivore) while distributing labels. Instruct students to wear their labels on their backs. If there are less than five students for a complete group, give them tertiary carnivore labels and instruct them to join other groups.
When all groups are ready, ask that the students who are producers stand up and step outside the circles?they will begin the "Duck, Duck, Goose"-like game for their group. The main variation is that students can only select students whose categories are capable of consuming them. The game continues, with each category "hunting" for "energy" within their group. For example, in each group, the producer will travel around the circle saying "hunting, hunting, energy," saying "energy" as they tap the herbivore. The herbivore will then chase the producer around the circle, the producer trying to avoid being tagged while getting back to the herbivore?s spot. If tagged, the producer has to sit in the center of the circle, the "food chain stewpot". If not tagged, the producer remains in the herbivore?s spot. In the next round, the herbivore will travel around the circle, repeating the "hunting, hunting, energy" cycle. The herbivore can either tap the omnivore or the primary carnivore.
Allow the cycles to continue until all students have had turns "hunting" within their food chain. Was it easy to determine the order of hunters within the groups?
Challenge students to a class-wide game that combines all food chains. What are food webs? What makes food webs unique? What category needs to be included in the food web that was not included in the food chains? Exchange several students? secondary or tertiary carnivore labels with detritivore labels.
Have students form one large circle?the center of the circle will now be the "food web stewpot". Follow the basic rules for group food chains with the addition of detritivores?they will tap herbivores. Since there will be several of each category in the circle, ask students to tap players who have not been "hunted". Allow the cycles to continue until all students have had turns "hunting" within the food web. Was it easy to determine the order of hunters? How could pollution affect the web?
In Addition
Play Energy Quest without labels! The student who starts the game chooses and announces a category that he or she would like to represent. That student then "hunts", taping any other student. The tapped student must then choose and announce a category that he or she represents that can consume the first. If the tapped student chooses an inappropriate category, he or she must go into the "food web stewpot", while the "hunting" student taps a different student.
For older students, modify Energy Quest into an inquiry-based challenge. Group students into pairs and have them place labels on each other?s backs without revealing the categories. Instruct the pairs to take turns asking "yes" and "no" questions to deduce their identities. Give students a pre-determined amount of time for inquiry. Then have students line up in food chains, and ask each of them to announce a common name of an organism found in the Chesapeake Bay watershed that would fit their category. If students have difficulty coming up with names, have students consult with other members of their food chain.
More Ideas
Play People Web! Ask students to stand in a circle and pass a skein of yarn back and forth across the circle. Each time the skein is passed, have the student holding the yarn announce their role in the web. For example, students can speak of the talents, skills and abilities that they contribute to the class. Once each student is holding a corner of yarn, ask one student to tug his or her corner. When another student feels the tug, they reciprocate by tugging their corner, and a chain reaction ensues. Soon, everyone in the circle should feel a tug on his or her corner of yarn. How is this activity like a food web? What happens when a classmate moves out of the community? Are others affected?
