UNIT LESSON PLAN: Organisms and their Environment

Diana Freeman | Amanda Graves | Charity Dobbs | Bryan Sellers

Subject and Audience: 7th Grade Life Science

Module: 1
Outcome:
Demonstrate how in a food web that matter is
transferred from one organism to another and can
recycle between organisms and their environments.
Georgia Performance Standard:
GPS S7L4. Students will examine the dependence of
organisms on one another and their environments.
Standards for the 21st Century Learner:
AASL 1.1.6 Read, view, and listen for
information presented in any format (e.g.,
textual, visual, media, digital) in order to make
inferences and gather meaning.
AASL 2.3.1 Connect understanding to the real
world.
AASL 1.1.2 Use prior and background knowledge
as context for new learning.

ITSE Standards for Students:

ITSE 1d Students understand the fundamental
concepts of technology operations, demonstrate
the ability to choose, use and troubleshoot
current technologies and are able to transfer
their knowledge to explore emerging
technologies.

Warm Up: Before the lesson, teacher will put students into groups of two or three. They will have choice cards that
gives them various species to choose from. As a group, the will select a card and will try to make a food chain
backwards. Example: Snakes eat rodents. Rodents eat grains. Grains grown from ground, which uses soil, water,
sunlight, etc.

Lesson: Four different stations (may need multiple stations of each resource depending on number of students in the
class) will be set up with each digital resource and task cards. Using the same groups, students will move through all
four stations, and using the task cards, complete the activities at each station.

Digital Resources Used:

Station 1: Newsela: Life Cycles: What is an Ecosystem?
This station will have the article pulled up and ready for the students to read. There will be instructions on a
card that will tell students how to change the reading level should they choose to. Students will need to
complete both of the activities after reading the article.
Station 2: Nearpod - Food Webs or https://app.nearpod.com/studentLogin use Code DZHCW
Using the task card, students will view the NearPod, and complete the activities within the NearPod.
Station 3: Producers/Consumers/Decomposers
Students will view the ThingLink. For every word they find listed on the ThingLink (producer, consumer, etc.),
they will use the task card to identify another example of the word. Ex: Tree = Producer | Grass = Producer
Station 4: Scholastic Study Jams
Students will view the video and then take the quiz. There will be space on the task card for them to write
down the feedback given for any incorrect answer from the quiz.
UNIT LESSON PLAN: Organisms and their Environment
Diana Freeman | Amanda Graves | Charity Dobbs | Bryan Sellers

Subject and Audience: 7th Grade Life Science

Module: 2
Outcome:
Identify in a food web that sunlight is the source of
energy and that this energy moves from organism
to organism.
Georgia Performance Standard:
GPS S7L4. Students will examine the dependence of
organisms on one another and their environments.
Standards for the 21st Century Learner:
AASL 2.3.1 Connect understanding to the real
world
AASL 3.1.4 Use technology and other
information tools to organize and display
knowledge and understanding in ways that
others can view, use, and assess.
ITSE Standards for Students:
ISTE 1a Students articulate and set personal
learning goals, develop strategies leveraging
technology to achieve them and reflect on the
learning process itself to improve learning
outcomes.
ITSE 7a Provide alternative ways for students to
demonstrate competency and reflect on their
learning using technology.

Warm-up: Students will review their goals and objectives for this lesson, in continuation from the previous module.
The BrainPOP video will be shown to introduce the discussion on food webs.

Lesson: The students will play the Food Chain Game independently on ChromeBooks as they are learning about food
chains and examples. Following completion of the game, the students will be divided into groups of 4-6, where they
will create their own food chains, using themselves. Each student, within the group, will take on a role from each part
of the chain. When taking on that role, they must be able to explain what their role does, as well as their part in the
food chain. Each group will present their food chain to their peers. Students can find their food chains from the game
or researching one online.

Assessment: Students will be evaluated on their presentation of their food chain, including identifying the appropriate
roles, being able to explain each role, and applying their knowledge of the food chain when deciding which animal will
be used for each area. Students will need to complete their food chain on a chart, via a Google Doc that would be sent
to them or on paper. The presentations will be very informal, and should only take about 5-7 minutes each.

Digital Resources Used:

Resource: Build a Food Chain Game
Resource: BrainPOP: Food Chains | Sign in with the username IMAstudent2 and password westga2
UNIT LESSON PLAN: Organisms and their Environment
Diana Freeman | Amanda Graves | Charity Dobbs | Bryan Sellers

Subject and Audience: 7th Grade Life Science

Module: 3
Outcome: Standards for the 21st Century Learner:
Investigate to see how changes in environmental AASL 1.1.8 Demonstrate mastery of technology
conditions can affect the survival of both individuals tools for accessing information and pursuing
and entire species. inquiry.

ITSE Standards for Students:

Georgia Performance Standard:
ISTE: 3d Students build knowledge by actively
GPS S7L4. Students will examine the dependence of
exploring real-world issues and problems,
organisms on one another and their environments.
developing ideas and theories and pursuing
answers and solutions.

Warm Up: Students will watch the Flocabulary Adaptation video together as a class. This will review a variety of
vocabulary words to begin the discussion of animal adaption. Once the video is completed, students will work in pairs
to write a short rap using the Flocabulary vocab words and share with the class if time permits.

Lesson Plan: After adaptation of animals is discussed during the warm-up, students will begin to discuss how the
environment affects individual animals and entire species. Students will be instructed to view the National Geographic-
Environmental disasters website. Students will then be assigned different natural disasters from the website (ex.
Hurricanes, volcanoes, tsunamis). Students will be instructed to the view the videos of the natural disaster that has
been assigned to them. This website is merely a starting point for students, as they spend time researching how their
natural disaster affects animal species. Using a presentation tool of their choice, students will create a short
presentation about their natural disasters and the effect it has on the environment and species in that area.

Assessment: Presentations will be graded; in addition, a short quiz on Flocabulary will be taken as a pre-assessment.

Digital Resources Used:

Resource: National Geographic - Environmental disasters
Resource: Flocabulary-Adaptation Lesson | Login with IMAStudent 2 and password westga2017
UNIT LESSON PLAN: Organisms and their Environment
Diana Freeman | Amanda Graves | Charity Dobbs | Bryan Sellers

Subject and Audience: 7th Grade Life Science

Module: 4
Outcome:
Find patterns in environmental conditions from
major biomes that show how certain species adapt
to their surroundings.
Computational Thinking Outcomes:
Analyze and interpret data to provide evidence for
the effects of resource availability on organisms and
populations of organisms in an ecosystem
Construct an explanation that predicts patterns of
interactions among organisms across multiple
ecosystems
Evaluate competing design solutions for maintaining
biodiversity and ecosystem services.
Develop a model to describe the cycling of matter
and flow of energy among living and nonliving parts
of an ecosystem
Standards for the 21st Century Learner:
AASL 1.1.3 Develop and refine a range of
questions to frame the search for new
understanding.
AASL 1.1.8 Demonstrate mastery of technology
tools for accessing information and pursuing
inquiry.
AASL 2.1.2 Organize knowledge so that it is
useful.
ITSE Standards for Students:
ITSE 5c Students break problems into
component parts, extract key information, and
develop descriptive models to understand
complex systems or facilitate problem-solving.
ITSE 7d Students explore local and global issues
and use collaborative technologies to work with
others to investigate solutions.

Georgia Performance Standard:

GPS S7L4. Students will examine the dependence of
organisms on one another and their environments.

Warm Up: Students will recall previous known information of what they think they know about biomes/ecosystems via
Padlet Warm-up

Lesson:
1. Intro Video Clip: Meet the Scientist - Parasite Tracker a marine ecologist talks about how he studies parasites of
invasive marine animals such as snails. Much of his research focuses on the dynamics between the host, the
parasite, and the surrounding ecosystem. This will lead to a discussion for students to recognize dependence of
organisms on one another and their environments. Apply Coral Reef Connections as another example.
2. Students will be placed in teams and design a Google Slides presentation. Each team will be assigned a biome.
They must describe the characteristics of that biome and list example animal/plant adaptations that help it to
survive in this climate. Multimedia like photos and video clips will need to be included and cited. Students will
also need to demonstrate the dependence those organisms have on other living and nonliving things in an
example ecosystem. Finally, they will investigate the influence humans have and explore possible solutions to the
problems human cause on their assigned environment.
3. As students interpret their findings to other groups, they will notice a pattern of how plant/animal species adapt
to the environmental conditions and the dependence of one another and their environments.
4. Students will look back on their warm up and summarize what they learned via Padlet Summary

Digital Resources Used:

Resource: Meet the Scientist - Parasite Tracker
Resource: Coral Reef Connections
Resource: Padlet Warm-Up and Padlet Summary
UNIT LESSON PLAN: Organisms and their Environment
Diana Freeman | Amanda Graves | Charity Dobbs | Bryan Sellers

Subject and Audience: 7th Grade Life Science

Module: 5
Outcome:
Explain the relationships between organisms that
are competitive or mutually beneficial.
Georgia Performance Standard:
GPS S7L4. Students will examine the dependence of
organisms on one another and their environments.
Standards for the 21st Century Learner:
AASL 1.1.2 Use prior and background knowledge
as context for new learning
AASL 2.3.1 Connect understanding to the real
world
ITSE Standards for Students:
ISTE 2b Students engage in positive, safe, legal
and ethical behavior when using technology,
including social interactions online or when
using networked devices
ITSE 3d Students build knowledge by actively
exploring real-world issues and problems,
developing ideas and theories and pursuing
answers and solutions.

Warm-up: Students will use a Popplet for this task. The Popplet has three words on it (Producers, Consumers,
Decomposers). Students will talk to their tablemates and come up with as many examples as possible for each
category in 3 minutes, answering on the Popplet.

Lesson: As a class, teacher and students will play both games: Producers Consumers Decomposers Game and Food
Chain Game. Students will then move to individual computers and read the article Ecological Interactions. Students
will need to be able to answer the following questions:
What do the interactions in an ecosystem look like?
Be able to give an example of a positive, negative and neutral interaction.

Students will then watch the video on Crevalle Jack and Silvertip Shark (using log in with - ID: IMAStudent2 and
password: westga). After watching the video, students will choose Writing Prompts and choose one to complete.

Digital Resources Used:

Resource: Popplet
Resource: Producers Consumers Decomposers Game and Food Chain Game
Resource: Ecological Interactions
Resource: Crevalle Jack and Silvertip Shark