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Meet the Micro:bits
Coding is easy and fun when students meet the micro:bits. Learn to write and download code, so you are ready to create your own scientific tools!
Meet the Micro:bits
Coding is easy and fun when students meet the micro:bits. Learn to write and download code, so you are ready to create your own scientific tools!
Student Edition
(English/Spanish)
Student Edition
(English/Spanish)
Student Edition
(English/Spanish)
California Wildfires
Watch Class Movie
teacher Prep
Lab sheet & activites
Class Movie
Watch Class Movie
Class Movie
Teacher Prep Movie
Lab Materials Needed
Blockey Koa Crate
from Kea STEMCrate
- 1 Springy Spring Scale per student
Student Lab Sheet
The Cycle of Matter in an Ecosystem: Where Does My Food Come From?
Student Edition
(English/Spanish)
Teacher Edition
(English/Spanish)
2022 New Edition!
(English/Spanish)
Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics 5-LS2-1:
Develop a model to describe the movement of matter among plants, animals, decomposers, and the environment.
Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics 5-PS3-1:
Use models to describe that energy in animals' food (used for body repair, growth, motion, and to maintain body warmth) was once energy from the sun.
Pacing Guide:
Color Key: Green words- Hands-on Activity Black words- Book reading Blue words: Revisit the Phenomenon
Instruction day 1: Explore the Phenomenon
Summary: Play Carbon Toss!
Lesson Objective: Students are introduced to the idea of carbon moving around within an ecosystem. Students play different roles within an ecosystem to understand how they might pass along carbon.
Introduction: Carbon is commonly found in two parts of an ecosystem: first in the air as carbon dioxide and second in cells, both plant and animal. Today we’ll do a simple representation of how carbon moves within an ecosystem. You all get to be a part of a grassland ecosystem!
(For 2020-2021 school year please print the following PDF, future editions will include this page in their journals: LINK TO PDF OF DICE and PDF OF SPECIES CARDS)
Materials needed: (For each student) scissors and tape. (For each group of 4-5 students) a ball to toss
Instructions:
-Have students carefully tear out the page with their Action Die then cut, fold, and tape according to the directions. Only two of the tabs will be able to be taped, the third will just be folded inside and you can use extra pieces of tape to secure any open edges. Only one die is needed per group so students that make mistakes are okay.
-Explain that the ball represents the carbon in the environment. It can either be the carbon in carbon dioxide (air) or it can be carbon in your cells depending on what is happening. If you are the organism with the ball then you are also the organism with the die.
-Go over each of the actions on the die and show how they can find out what happens to them based on their organism card. Any organism that rolls Lightning gets burned and its carbon is released to the atmosphere, the ball is placed in the middle.
-There is not a winner! This is not a game to be won, this is an activity to represent a cycle. We will play each round for a few minutes then switch who is which organism.
-Students will sit in a circle on the floor and randomly draw which card they are from the stack of 5. Once they are seated, all have chosen a role and there is a die to roll then you place the ball in the center of the circle.
-Use a board to list the organisms that will live in each small group: Grass (remove this card if the group is only 4 students), Blueberry shrub, Rabbit, Coyote (omnivore, eats both Blueberries and Rabbits) and Beetle (the decomposer). When you are one of these species you represent ALL of those species in the ecosystem so if you’re a rabbit that gets eaten by a coyote you are not “out”, you just play as a different rabbit the next time. All students will get to be different species so if you start as Grass you won’t be Grass the next time. The center of your circle will represent the atmosphere.
-”There is carbon in your atmosphere, which organisms can use the carbon in the air?” Students should be able to answer “plants” and if there are two plant species then they decide which one of them gets the ball first. (Or can rock-paper-scissors for it.)
-Tell the first plant to toss the die and read the action. “What happens to you? Where does your carbon go with that action?” They can use their Species Card to see to whom to toss the ball based upon the action. When the ball is passed onto another species then the die is passed to them as well.
-Have students play for ~3 minutes for the first round, long enough that they get the hang of it. Once you see understanding and comfort with the process then have students change cards to become something completely different (plants should become an animal, coyote and rabbit should become plants or decomposers).
-Play as many rounds as you like, but be sure to save some time for them to answer the Explore the Phenomenon question: “How can carbon move within an ecosystem?”
Instruction day 2 (pages 197 - 200): Read and discuss
Summary: Introduce the chapter by meeting the author and reviewing basic concepts.
Lesson Objective: Students are introduced to the author and beginning concepts of the article. Students discuss how things can move in cycles and how matter can exist in different states.
Introduction: Let’s look at the cover, what do you notice? (I see a pretty purple flower with cool leaves, there’s some grass too.) How does a plant make food for itself? What is that process called? (It uses the sun for photosynthesis.) Which animals might eat flowers, leaves or grass? (We know lots of animals that eat grass: cows, horses, deer, rabbits, etc. They might eat the leaves or flowers too.) Let’s look at the title of our article, will someone read it for me? So the matter that makes up the plant can then become a part of the matter of an animal! Let’s meet the author of this article.
Instructions: IRead about scientist Daniel Poulson and ask the first Guiding Question. Have a student read aloud what the fox says on the next page. Have students write their potential answers in the margins of the page as you read the riddle two or more times aloud to the class. Have them share their best answer with a classmate then discuss possible answers as a class. Both “global warming” and “climate change” are great answers. “Now we can unlock the chapter!” Read pages 199 and 200, review the concepts of things having a cycle and the three states of matter.
Guiding Questions:
Ask: Daniel studies biochemistry, a combination of biology and chemistry. He is working on antibiotics, does anyone know why doctors might give a patient antibiotics? What are they for?
Example: Antibiotics are for infections.Have you ever used Neosporin on cut when you need a bandaid? That is a type of antibiotic to make sure no bacteria from the place where you hurt yourself get into your body.
Ask: Which phrases helped you think of the answer to the riddle?
Example: There are two phrases near the beginning, “if you want to slow me down, don’t wait for luck” and “I’m caused by greenhouse gases and pollution”. That makes me think of global warming or climate change.
Ask: There are lots of cycles that humans are a part of besides where our food goes and where it comes from. Can you think of how your breathing works in a cycle?
Example: I breathe in oxygen, breathe out carbon dioxide, then breathe in oxygen again. You could even say there is a cycle plants have with humans where we breathe out the carbon dioxide, the plants breathe it in, the plants breathe out the oxygen, then humans breathe it in.
Ask: Water molecules are an easy example for how something looks different as a solid, liquid or gas. What is an example of water as a gas? What about water as a solid?
Example: Clouds and steam are examples of water vapor, it’s in a gas form that can move around in the air. Water as a solid is called ice and it is very cold! When water is liquid it can move around in my glass.
Wrap-up: Doodle prompt: We’ll be talking about how food is part of a cycle in this article. What is your favorite food? Draw it next to Skilly on page 199.
Instruction day 3 (pages 201 - 202): Read and discuss
Summary: Matter can change, but not disappear. Carbon is an important part of our food.
Lesson Objective: Students discuss the Law of Conservation of Mass, matter can be changed, but cannot simply disappear. Students understand that carbon is an important ingredient in food. Students interact with a 3D model of glucose to better connect to carbon as an important ingredient to many molecules.
Introduction: Remember we talked about how water can exist as a solid, liquid or gas? When water is heated and changes from being a liquid to being a gas, we know that the water molecules still exist, just in a different form. This is true of all types of matter, they can’t just disappear!
Instructions: Read page 201 together and have students use the margin to write notes about what the Law of Conservation of Mass means in their own words. They can doodle a friend for Tedros at the bottom of the page. Read page 202 and discuss the diagram of a sugar molecule. “When we look at the sugar molecules, the ‘C’s represent carbon.”
Guiding Questions:
Ask: Fire breaks down wood or paper, our mouths and stomachs break down food. Can you think of other things that get broken down?
Example: When a tree falls down in a forest it will break down or decompose. A structure could get broken down, like a bridge or a house, and become rubble.
Ask: When we look at the sugar molecules, the “C”s represent carbon. What do you think the “O”s and “H”s stand for? How many carbon atoms do we see in this molecule?
Example: The “O”s stand for oxygen. The “H”s stand for hydrogen. I count six carbon atoms in this molecule.
Ask: Have you ever used sugar for baking or cooking? What is something you have made using sugar?
Example: I help make cookies and cakes at home and those use lots of sugar!
Hands-on exploration: Explore a sugar molecule in a model and under your microscope! Use the following website to allow students to interact with a 3D model of the sugar molecule depicted on page 202. Did you know that this is just one single sugar molecule! https://www.echalk.co.uk/3Dmolecules/carbohydrates/glucoseOpen.htm
The carbon molecules are already labeled with a blue “C”, but the hydrogen and oxygen molecules can also be labeled by clicking the “Show Element Labels” box.
Next: Let each student get a scoopy spoonful of sugar and put it into a petri dish to observe under their microscope. Let students use the microscopes available at your school to look at sugar crystals!
A single tiny sugar crystal under your microscope has more than a trillion sugar molecules in it!
Instruction day 4 (pages 203 - 204): Read and discuss
Summary: Review the terms ecosystem, producer and consumer.
Lesson objective: Students connect terms like photosynthesis, producer and consumer to the carbon cycle.
Introduction: You’ve probably heard some of the words we’re going to talk about today (ecosystem, photosynthesis, producer, and consumer), but let’s review what they mean and learn what they have to do with carbon. I’m also going to warn you, we will mention poop!
Instructions: Read both pages and check that the students are familiar with the blue vocabulary words. (If not, be sure to play the video linked below before asking the Guiding Questions.) Look over the pictures on both pages and ask students what they notice. Encourage students to use the margins to write down notes, how do the keywords connect to carbon?
Guiding Questions:
Ask: What form does most carbon take at the beginning of the carbon cycle? Who uses it first and how?
Example: Carbon usually starts off at the gas carbon dioxide and plants use it during photosynthesis.
-Yes, plants take carbon from the air, use it to make sugars in their plant body and release oxygen when they are done. That’s great for us because we like oxygen and we like sugar!
Ask: What is the difference between a producer and a consumer?
Example: A producer is able to make food (sugars) by itself (with help from the sun), but animals can’t make sugars in their body no matter how much sun they get! Consumers have to find food and eat it.
(Extra info for students) Ask: If plants make sugar out of carbon dioxide and sunlight, why doesn’t every plant taste sweet? When you eat a salad made of lettuce leaves, the lettuce isn’t sweet tasting.
Share the Answer: The answer is that plants can make different types of sugars. As humans we enjoy sweet tasting sugars such as sucrose (ie: baking sugar) and fructose (what makes some fruits, like strawberries, taste sweet), but plants will also make molecules that are technically sugar (such as glucose, the molecule we explored on the website), but don’t taste sweet on our tongues.
Wrap-up: Crash Course video review of producers and consumers, 3+ minutes
Instruction day 5 (pages 205 - 206): Read, discuss, and write
Summary: How is breathing a part of the carbon cycle?
Lesson objective: Students connect how carbon enters and exits their system. Students connect how carbon in the air they exhale will be used by plants.
Introduction: We just learned that we can get carbon by eating, but that’s not the only way carbon moves in an ecosystem. Breathing is an important part too! In the book we sometimes see “CO2”, what does that represent? (Carbon dioxide.) Exactly, CO2 is just a shorter way of saying carbon dioxide. The carbon that is in your cells because you have eaten food will get released when you breathe out. Let’s find out how our bodies make that happen!
Instructions: Read the paragraph on page 205 slowly so students understand each part of the process. Use Guiding Questions as you find helpful. Study the diagram on page 206 and use it to answer the questions beneath it.
Guiding Questions:
Ask: In order to understand this paragraph there are a few things to know and you already know one of them really well. What do animals/humans breathe in? (Oxygen) What do we breathe out? (Carbon dioxide) How are plants different?
Example: Plants “breathe” the opposite of us, they bring in carbon dioxide and push out oxygen.
Ask: When you breathe in, oxygen goes in through your mouth or nose, then down into which organ? (Your lungs.) Do you know what your lungs do with all that oxygen?
Example: Your lungs push the oxygen into your bloodstream! Your heart needs all that oxygen in your blood so it can send it out to all your cells.
-The oxygen from your lungs is put into blood that goes straight to the heart (that’s why those two organs are so close together, the heart needs it right away), the heart pumps the blood with oxygen in it out to your body (even all the way to your toes!).
Ask: When your cells use the oxygen to stay alive, they have this extra carbon dioxide they don’t want. Have you ever had something extra you don’t need anymore?
Example: I get a present for my birthday and I’ll open it, but then I don’t need the wrapping paper anymore, I need to throw away. That’s what happens with our cells! They are glad to get the oxygen from the blood, but then need to get rid of some useless carbon dioxide. So they send it with the blood! Can you guess what happens from there?
Ask: Where in the body does that blood filled with carbon dioxide go?
Example: It goes back to the heart which then pumps it to the lungs. That’s why we breathe out the carbon dioxide, it came to our lungs from the blood running through our bodies. Then oxygen comes in through our lungs and the process starts all over again! Back to the heart, back to our cells, back to the heart, back to our lungs. Over and over, several times a minute!
Ask: Now one of the parts of the process, when our cells take oxygen and make carbon dioxide, is an important part of the carbon cycle, but how did the carbon (that we’re getting rid of with carbon dioxide) get into our bodies in the first place?
Example: We ate it! Whether we eat plants or animals or both as a part of our diet, we are consuming carbon, this is part of what makes our cells and allows us to grow.
Instruction day 6 (pages 207 - 208): Read and Discuss
Summary: Discuss what happens to other types of waste. Discuss the impact of too much carbon dioxide.
Lesson objective: Students discuss how scavengers and decomposers contribute to the carbon cycle. Students discuss the accumulation of carbon dioxide as it relates to global warming.
Introduction: When you need to go to the bathroom sometimes you will say you have to go number one or number two and we all know what those mean! But did you know that scientists have other names for poop? It can be called feces or excrement. (If you find it while you’re hiking, you can call it scat!)
Instructions: Read page 207 and ask students what they notice about the pictures. You may decide to use the intro below before reading page 208. Read page 208 and study the diagram. Encourage students to use the margins to explain what they’re learning in their own words.
Guiding Questions:
Ask: When an animal is hunted then another animal eats it, but often not every single part of it. A bug might get eaten whole by a lizard, but a cheetah hunting a gazelle isn’t going to eat the fur of the gazelle. What happens to the leftovers of a hunt or an animal that dies of old age?
Example: Decomposers and scavengers break it down over time.
-Scavengers, like vultures and beetles, will eat the meat so the carbon from the dead animal goes into their bodies and stays a part of the carbon cycle that way. Decomposers like bacteria and fungi will grow on the leftovers of the animal and break down the carbon in the animal’s cells into carbon dioxide that gets returned to the air. Which part of the environment uses carbon dioxide that’s in the air? (Plants/producers)
Ask: Why do we make poop and what types of organisms in an environment make poop?
Example: Poop is waste, whatever our bodies don’t need from what we eat. All animals make poop! (Plants don’t poop.)
Intro for page 208: Have you ever gotten into a car that was sitting in the sun and it felt extra hot when you got inside? Our atmosphere can be like the windows of a car! It lets sunlight in, but then traps the heat inside, this keeps the Earth from getting too cold.
If our Earth is the car then usually we have few enough molecules in the atmosphere that it is like having “the windows cracked” in a car to allow some of the heat to leave the Earth. As we add more and more carbon dioxide to the air it is blocking the ability for the heat to leave, closing that “crack”. This causes the temperature to steadily rise over time to the point that it is bad for the planet.
Ask: Plants are the only things in an environment that like carbon dioxide! Is the number of plants on our planet going up or going down? Why?
Example: There are less plants on our planet than before because we keep chopping down trees and putting houses where plants used to live.
Ask: How does having less plants impact the amount of carbon dioxide on our planet?
Example: If there are less plants then the amount of carbon dioxide builds up. It doesn’t help that we have found even more ways to add carbon dioxide to the environment when we make pollution, like driving cars fueled by gas.
Wrap-up: Watch a NASA video about the carbon cycle and how NASA uses satellites to help us monitor it (5+ minutes)
Instruction day 7 (pages 209-210): Read, discuss, and write
Summary: Complete the carbon cycle diagram!
Lesson Objective: Students demonstrate understanding of the carbon cycle in an environment by completing a diagram. Students write about connections between organisms in an environment.
Introduction: We’ve talked about a lot of connections between organisms and their environment these last few pages. Show me what you know! We’ve been given a diagram, now we just need to explain what is happening.
Instructions: Read the paragraph at the bottom of page 209 and have students work together in pairs or small groups to discuss what to write in each purple circle. What are the important connections in an environment? How do these organisms exchange carbon between each other? Discuss as a class what ideas students had for writing in each purple circle. There could be multiple ways to describe the carbon cycle, a good guide of answers is in the teacher text but can be adjusted if what the students write makes sense. Students can fill in their circles while discussing with each other or wait until the group discussion for parts they are unsure on.
Guiding Questions:
Ask: Where are the producers in our diagram? How do they get carbon for themselves and how do they give carbon to others?
Example: I see a flower by the fox, I see some grass in the mouths of the mouse and bison, and the bison is sitting in the shade of a tall tree. The producers get carbon from the carbon dioxide in the air, they give carbon when they are eaten by animals or broken down by decomposers.
Ask: In the bottom right corner, there is oxygen (O2) pointing at the excrement, but poop doesn’t breathe! What is on the poop that uses the oxygen?
Example: Bacteria on the poop use the oxygen and release carbon dioxide, they are just too small to draw!
Wrap-up: Can you find any other arrows that you could add to make the diagram even more complete? (Every animal, not just the fox, releases CO2 that the plants can use. The CO2 that is released by animals and pollution goes to both plants and the atmosphere. We can also make arrows connecting each of the animals to the excrement because all animals add poop to their environment.) Great work!
Instruction day 8 (pages 211 - 212): Read, draw, and discuss
Summary: Where does our candy come from?
Lesson Objective: Students discuss the ingredients of candy and describe the producers and consumers that help create it.
Introduction: We don’t have to eat an animal to get carbon or energy from it. Are there things that certain animals produce while still alive that humans use a lot? (We use cow milk for lots of things! We can drink it, make cream or butter from it. I think there is some way we make cheese from it too. We use eggs from chickens in lots of cooking. Bees make honey.) Today we’re going to talk about how both plants and animals help to create some of the yummiest things for us to eat!
Instructions: Read what candy ingredients are made from. Students choose their favorite candy, draw it in the space provided and list its ingredients based upon information on the page.
Hands on activity: Bring in an assortment of candy for the kids to choose to write about and then enjoy.
Guiding Questions:
Ask: If you only had a bar of plain milk chocolate, it still would have some ingredients from producers and some from consumers. Which parts are made by plants and which parts are made by animals?
Example: The cacao pods and sugar come from plants/producers. The milk, butter and cream come from cows, those are consumers.
Ask: Does anyone have candy ingredients that are not listed on the page?
Example: My favorite candy is Snickers, that has peanuts which come from a plant. I like Reese’s, it has peanut butter which comes from peanuts and sugar, both of those are plants. I don’t like chocolate, I like Jolly Ranchers which is basically just sugar! Sugar comes from plants.
Wrap-up: Let’s just think about this for a second. Because sugar cane takes sun, water and carbon dioxide and turns it into yummy tasting carbon (aka sugar) and a cow eats less tasty carbon (grass) and turns it into milk we can use, we have the magic of chocolate and all sorts of other sweet treats! Isn’t the world amazing?!
Instruction day 9 (pages 213 - 214): Read and discuss
Summary: Learn about how global warming impacts reef ecosystems.
Lesson Objective: Students learn more about a reef ecosystem. Students
Introduction: Have you ever heard of the Great Barrier Reef? Where is it found in the world? (Off the coast of Australia) How would you describe a reef? What would you find there? (A reef is made of coral, it is colorful and there are lots of fish that live there. They are not in deep ocean, you could snorkel in most reefs.) Reefs are such a fun ecosystem, there are so many types of animals that can live there.
Instructions Watch Cal Academy of Sciences video about coral reef species to generate interest and ask science questions. Watch this World Economic Forum video about why protecting reefs is important. (Optionally, find a coral reef live cam, such as available with California Academy of Sciences, to have on in the background while they read and write.) Read both pages 213 and 214 then ask students what they notice about each picture. Use the space at the bottom of the pages to write what differences they see.
Video: Exploring Ecosystems 5+ minutes
Video: Why should we care about coral reefs? 2+ minutes
Guiding Questions:
Ask: It seems strange that only two degrees in water temperature would cause coral to die. Do you think the water just needs to be warm one time in order to kill the coral? Will one really hot day devastate an entire reef? Or do you think it needs to be over a longer period of time?
Example: I think it needs to be over time. Most animals can survive a heat wave, but if it is for a prolonged time then they will be less and less able to recover.
-If coral reefs deal with 1-2° change for several weeks then they will begin “bleaching”, losing their algae friends and starting to die.
Ask: If the land is experiencing warmer temperatures in general over recent years, do you think that has an effect on the ocean?
Example: Yes, the air is getting warmer in general around the world and this warm air impacts both the land and the air.
Wrap-up: Use the margin to draw different types of coral you saw in the videos or pictures. What color coral would be if you could choose?
Instruction day 10 (pages 215 - 216): Read and discuss
Summary: How is global warming impacting the oceans overall?
Lesson Objective: Students discuss how scientists measure the temperature of the ocean. Students discuss how they can impact the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere as a part of their daily life.
Introduction: Reefs are in shallower parts of the ocean that reach sunlight rather than the dark depths. Do you think the deeper parts of the ocean are getting warmer with climate change too? Let’s read about how scientists measure the temperature of the ocean.
Instructions: Read page 215, observe the graph and caption. What do students notice about the line on the graph? Read page 216 and have students list the ways that they can reduce carbon in their lives, both listed or otherwise known.
Guiding Questions:
Clarifying Question - Ask: Why are they measuring the ocean in joules instead of degrees?
Answer: They can’t say that the temperature was X degrees one year and X degrees the next, the ocean has many temperatures at once! It is active, deep and stretches around the world; all the oceans touch each other. Different parts of the ocean will change more in general temperature in a year than other areas of the ocean. Joules may seem complicated to you, but for scientists it is the easiest way to talk about the general heat of the ocean.
Ask: When they measure the temperature of the ocean, do you think they measure the surface, the bottom, somewhere in between? All of those?
Example: I think they get as many measurements as they can possibly get! They probably have a cool computer program that can GPS where they are and measure how deep they are for each measurement. They may not be able to take many temperature readings at the bottom of the ocean, but I bet they have at least a few!
Ask: How using less electricity, like turning off lights and electronics, reduce the amount of carbon put in the atmosphere? My lightbulb isn’t burning gas!
Example: The electricity that powers our houses comes from a power plant! Some power plants emit barely any carbon (solar and wind plants are great at this), but most places rely on at least one power plant that burns some kind of fuel (gas, coal, etc.) in order to produce electricity. If we use less electricity then that power plant will need to burn less fuel.
Wrap-up: Pair/share prompt or class discussion: People use electricity in their houses, but businesses use lots of electricity too! Grocery stores need to run lots of lights and refrigerators. Factories need electricity to build things. Offices use electricity to run lots of computers. Do you think technology can help us use less electricity for both homes and businesses? (Absolutely! One of the things scientists do all the time is make things more efficient. If it takes less energy to run a laptop today than it did ten years ago then that is helping to save energy! Although we probably buy more laptops today than we did ten years ago. You can see the give and take!)
Instruction day 11 (pages 217 - 218): Hands on Activity: Discover Tide Pools!
Summary: See what you can find in the sand!
Lesson objective: Students use science tools to make observations. Students write and draw their observations. Students use charts to identify shells and rocks. Students connect shells to the carbon cycle.
Materials needed: (per student) Meeka microscope, printed after lab journal page, Toby tweezers, petri dish, scoop of sand
Introduction: What are some ocean animals that have shells? (Crabs, clams, etc.) Shells are made from carbon! Even when one of those animals dies their shell usually ends up somewhere. Sometimes it rests at the bottom of the ocean, sometimes it gets caught in rocks, but it also can get broken into smaller pieces and become part of the sand! Today we get to be the scientists, trying to identify which pieces came from which animals! Let’s start by watching a video that shows us what we’re doing today.
Instructions: Use the STEMTaught website to guide you through this activity, everything you need is here: https://www.stemtaught.com/pocketecosystem. Start by watching the Teacher Prep movie and get materials ready for your class. Watch the student movie as a class before the activity. Have students get their materials and bring them back to their desk. Give students 30-45 minutes to observe, write and draw using pages 221-224. After several minutes of free exploration time, direct students to start identifying the objects they can see in their sand. Share what they find with each other. Project the identification guide on a smart board for students to see if possible. Students should return the sand to the crate when done and clean any other tools as needed. Ask Guiding Questions during and/or after the activity.
Teacher Prep Video: Carbon Cycle Sediment
Video: Sorting Sand from a Tide Pool Ecosystem
Guiding Questions:
Ask: The ocean animals use carbon to make their shells, but where do they get carbon from? (Still stumped? How did the fox in our earlier diagram get carbon from the mouse?)
Example: Animals can get carbon from their food. We use carbon for energy to move and to make our bodies (like bones) so ocean animals must do the same thing!
Ask: What is an example of a producer you could find in the ocean? Have you ever found a producer from the ocean that was washed up on the beach?
Example: Plants in the ocean are things like seaweed, kelp, algae. I see those things washed up on the beach whenever I go there. I’ve heard of plankton before, but I don’t know if those are plants or animals.
-There are both plant and animal plankton, microscopic plants and animals that are the beginning of the ocean food chain! We probably won’t see them in the sand, but they are living out in the ocean.
Wrap-up: Use the After Journal sheet to have students draw themselves doing the activity (or show what they found) and write about it.
Click the picture for more lab resources
Tidepool Sand Sorting
Students sort sand from a tide pool and identify the producers and consumers.
Instruction day 12 (pages 219 - 220): STEM Vocabulary
Summary: Let’s go back over the new science words we learned.
Lesson Objective: Students review words and concepts learned in the article.
Introduction: We’ve learned a lot of big ideas in this article, hopefully building on things you’ve already learned before, but it’s good to go back over and make sure we understand them.
Instructions: Read through each word and help students find them in the article. Students find something interesting to write about or give an example of each vocabulary term.
Guiding Questions:
Ask: What is an example of the conservation of mass? What is something that seems destroyed, but actually just changes into something different?
Example: Wood that is burned changes into ash, smoke and steam. Animals that die become food for scavengers and decomposers. When we eat food it becomes carbon energy in our cells or excrement.
Ask: Under the definition of carbon dioxide it mentions the common natural way we think of it, as something used by producers and breathed out by consumers. Besides breathing, what are some other ways carbon dioxide is produced?
Example: Burning of wood in a fire, gas in an engine, coal in a power plant or natural gas on a stove all produce carbon dioxide. It also can be produced during decomposition.
Ask: Carbon is a part of carbon dioxide, but it can be in other forms too. In what other forms can you find carbon in an ecosystem?
Example: Carbon can be in the shell of an animal. Carbon can be in the cells of an animal stored as energy. Carbon can be the sugars of a plant.
Ask: Greenhouse gases have been in our atmosphere for a very long time, thousands of years! What is different in the last several decades that makes scientists worry about greenhouse gases?
Example: The amount of greenhouse gases is what is worrying scientists. They know that carbon dioxide levels have gone up in recent decades and that the Earth’s overall temperature has risen as well. The warming worries the scientists because they see it has a significant impact on the ability of ecosystems and species to survive.
Wrap-up: Go back to page 199 and find where you drew your favorite food(s). Where did the carbon in those foods come from? Producers? Consumers? Both?
Extra: Play the Carbon Toss activity again! Can students remember what to do without peeking at their action cards?
Instruction day 13 (pages 221 - 224): Hands On Activity: Tide Pool sand sorting!!
Summary: Play the Carbon Toss activity again!
Lesson objective: Can students remember what to do without peeking at their action cards?
Instruction day 14 (page 225): Writing Workshop
Summary: Apply what you’ve learned to answer the questions.
Lesson objective: Students use evidence from the article to support their writing. Students develop answers based upon concepts learned in the article.
Materials needed: Extra paper for students to write on
Introduction: Show what you know!
Instructions: Read through each question on page 225 and assign all questions or let students choose two questions to write about. Let them discuss with others where they can find evidence in the article then give them time to write on their own. Encourage them to use diagrams, when appropriate, without copying exactly from the book. Use Guiding Questions as desired.
Guiding Questions:
Ask: Producers and consumers in the ocean don’t need to get carbon dioxide and oxygen from the air, it’s right there in the water! How could you show how carbon moves around in an ocean ecosystem? You’ll need examples of producers, consumers, decomposers and how they each get and release carbon.
Example: Ocean producers could be seaweed or plant plankton. Ocean primary consumers (that eat producers) could be small fish that then get eaten by bigger fish. An ocean decomposer could be a crab. Producers use carbon dioxide that is found in the water like plants on land use carbon dioxide from the air, using photosynthesis. They then turn that carbon into sugars in their plant cells. An ocean consumer could get carbon by eating a producer or eating another consumer, it then releases carbon by breathing. Ocean consumers that make shells use carbon to make those shells. An ocean decomposer gets carbon while breaking down waste and releases it as carbon dioxide during that process as well.
Ask: How can you take the diagram we used on pages 209-210 and turn it into a few paragraphs? What would your introduction and conclusion be? What do you notice about the carbon cycle in general?
Example: I would say that carbon can be found in plants, animals and the air, just in different forms. Organisms transfer this carbon through respiration, digestion and decomposition. (See paragraph at the bottom of page 209 for specific breakdown.) I notice that these processes result in a cycle of carbon that is relatively balanced in most ecosystems until humans cause an increase in production of carbon dioxide.
Ask: Carbon dioxide is released to the atmosphere in some natural ways (Breathing and wildfires for example). What are some other ways carbon dioxide is released that are specifically due to humans? What are some ways humans could decrease these excess contributions?
Example: Humans add carbon dioxide by burning things for a wide variety of reasons. If we can decrease our demand for this fuel that could help as well as planting trees that can remove more carbon dioxide from the air.
Wrap-up: Pair/share prompt: What was the most interesting thing you learned in this article?
Instruction day 15: Evaluate
Summary: Apply what you’ve learned to answer the questions.
Instructions: Read through each question on page 225 and assign all questions or let students choose two questions to write about. Let them discuss with others where they can find evidence in the article then give them time to write on their own. Encourage them to use diagrams, when appropriate, without copying exactly from the book. Use Guiding Questions as desired.
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