Lesson Plan

Science: Ecosystems Lesson 9 Food Chains

Teacher: Lauren Rose

Grade Level: 4th

I.

Content and Standards:

S4.A.3.1.2: Explain a relationship between living and nonliving components in a system
(e.g., food web)

II.

Prerequisites:
Students should be aware of basic needs of plants and animals.

III.

Essential Question:
How does energy flow through a food chain?

IV.

Instructional Objective:
Students will be able to identify specific words from a food chain (producer, consumer,
herbivore, carnivore, omnivore, decomposer) and understand the way energy flows
through the chain.

V.

Instructional Procedures:
Teacher will introduce the lesson by having students write their focus question down that
will be projected on the board (How does energy move through a food chain?) and writing
their predictions into their notebooks. Teacher will call on a few students to share their
predictions. Teacher will explain that energy for some organisms is different than energy
needed for others including sunlight is energy needed for plants while meat is energy
needed for certain animals.
Teacher will hand out food chain vocabulary charts for students to think about as they
watch the food chain video. Teacher will show BrainPop food chain video that specifically
goes through definitions and examples of key food chain terms. After the video, teacher
will call on students to describe definitions of the vocabulary words to write in their charts.
Teacher will have copy projected on the overhead to model writing in the definitions.
These terms will include food chain, herbivore, carnivore, omnivore, producers, and
consumers.
Teacher will give each student a card with an object on it. Between two tables, they will
have the correct objects to create a food chain. Students will decide if their card is the
next component of the food chain and be called on to see if they are correct. If so, they

will join the previous members of the food chain in the front of the room to create the full
chain. This will be done three times (2 tables per food chain) to incorporate total
participation from the class of describing a food chain.
Teacher will close the lesson by reviewing with students the key vocabulary words we
learned today and how energy flows through a food chain.

VI.

Materials and Equipment:

Student science notebooks
BrainPop video
Food Chain vocabulary chart
Cards with objects to create food chain

VII.

Assessment/Evaluation:
Students will be assessed on their thinking skills during the time they share their
predictions about how energy flows through a food chain. Students will be assessed on
their answers/definitions on the vocabulary chart they respond with during group
discussion. Teacher will call on several different students to assess for whole group
understanding. Students will also be assessed during the create a food chain activity by
knowing when their object would come in a food chain. It will specifically be assessed
that students understand the beginning and end of a food chain when answering the food
chain questions.

VIII.

Differentiation: Individualized Activities:

If students are unable to follow along during this lesson, I will give one-on-one attention
from myself or the teacher aide in the room to help assist them. Students will have a
visual representation of a food chain from the BrainPop video and from having the
definitions modeled to be written on their own charts. Students will have an interactive
activity to physically be a part of a food chain using their object cards to create their
chains.

IX.

Self-Assessment:
I will assess my teaching through this lesson by observing the answers students respond

with to the vocabulary terms and seeing what words may need further explanation if they
are misunderstood. I will also see how well the students are able to create their own food
chains as a group and if certain students are unable to identify when their object comes
into the chain, I will use that information to properly individualize teaching for the next
food web lesson.