Food Production and Energy for Life

The student will study the basic parts of plants, investigate how plants produce food, and discover that plants and animals use food to sustain life.

Day 1 Review

Review the following - commensalism, parasitism, mutualism, and predator

Print photos using links below. Students sort photos according to relationships.

• commensalism - relationship between two living organisms where one benefits and the other is neither harmed nor helped

  • using a second organism for housing such as small mammal or bird that lives in holes in trees or orchids which live in trees http://alt.cimedia.com/palmbeachpost/swf/ghost_orchid9.swf

  • birds that live among cattle to eat the insects stirred up as they walk - egrets hunt for insects near a grazing animal's mouth

  • clownfish lives among the forest of tentacles of an anemone and is protected from potential predators

  • one animal attaching itself to another for transportation such as barnacles attach to shells or whales or a shrimp riding on a sea slug http://www.seaslugforum.net/showall.cfm?base=symbio

• parasitism - one organism, usually physically smaller of the two (the parasite) benefits and the other (the host) is harmed

  • insects such as mosquitoes feeding on a host http://www.audubon.org/bird/wnv/pdf/the_vectors.pdf

  • tapeworm or hookworms living in host's gut http://www.desireforhealth.com/pck_info_photos.html

  • ticks and fleas that live in a host animal's fur - bite the animals and drink its blood

  • spider mites suck sugar from plants http://images.google.com/images?q=spider+mites+photo&hl=en&um=1&sa=X&oi=images&ct=title

  • The roots of the Owl Clover are partly parasitic on the roots of other desert wildflowers. http://www.toddshikingguide.com/FloraFauna/Flora14.htm

• mutualism - both species benefit from the interaction
  PowerPoint with examples of mutualism http://facstaff.bloomu.edu/ccorbin/mutualismexamples.ppt

  • flowers and their pollinators (examples:  bees and hummingbirds gather nectar and spread pollen)

  • birds and mammals eat  berries and fruits while plant benefits by the dispersal of it seeds

  • coral reefs

  • algae and fungi > lichen - alga gets water and nutrients from the fungus and fungus gets food from the alga http://www.fcps.edu/islandcreekes/ecology/british_soldiers.htm

  • cleaners eat insect pests from the skin of animals (ex: Egyptian plover cleans giraffes and buffaloes) http://www.saburchill.com/ans02/chapters/chap011.html

  • many herbivores such as cows, sheep, deer, horses and rabbits depend on bacteria that live in their stomachs to break down the plant material

• predator - one eats another (Herbivores eat plants. Carnivores eats animals.)

  • bear eating fish http://www.oceanlight.com/spotlight.php?img=17051 http://www.hydrosight.com/acrylic_applications.php

  • anole http://www.wpclipart.com/animals/A/Anole_eating.png

Day 2 Review

predator and prey

• predator - organism that does the killing

Characteristics

• excellent eyesight

• strong wings

• sharp teeth

• fast leg muscles to catch prey

• prey - organism that is eaten as food

Characteristics

• fast leg muscles to run away from predator

• good hearing

• can hide well

• colors that blend in with environment

• limiting factors - nonliving parts of the environment

  • air

  • water

  • soil

  • weather

  • space

  • pollution

http://www.dnr.state.il.us/lands/education/CLASSRM/birds/lesson2.pdf

Day 3 Photosynthesis

Make cycle.

http://www.naturenextdoor.org/PDF%20Files/carboncycleskit.pdf

http://www.eduplace.com/science/hmxs/ls/pdf/4rs_1_2-5.pdf

http://155.44.225.28/science/hmxs/ls/pdf/3rs_1_3-3.pdf

Day 4  How Organisms Obtain Food

http://www.microsoft.com/education/msbanimals.mspx

Demonstrate selected house-hold items that simulate ways certain animals have adapted to getting food. Some examples include: a sieve for baleen whales who filter their food; pliers for the beaks of birds who crack nuts; a straight clear straw to represent a humming-bird's beak; "blow out" party favor to represent a frog's tongue; a mortar and pestle for deer who grind their teeth.

Go over vocabulary words.

• Producer (autotroph) - green plants, which make the food to begin a food chain
• Consumers (heterotroph) - an animal that eats food
  • herbivores - a consumer animal that eats only plants
  • carnivores - a consumer animals that eats only other animals: a meat eater
  • omnivores - a consumer animal that eats both plants and animals
• Decomposers - an organism that breaks down dead plants and animals, returning nutrients to the environment

Label food chains using terms.

Day 5  How Organisms Obtain Food

Enchanted Learning http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/foodchain/

TCAP Coach Lesson 4

Day 6 Food Chains

http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/Homework/fooodchains.htm

http://www.gould.edu.au/foodwebs/kids_web.htm

Brain Pop Food Chains

Food chain - sequence by which energy is transferred from sunlight to plants and then animals Who is eating whom? in the environment?

• primary consumers
• secondary consumer
• tertiary consumer

Days 7-8 Food Webs

Food Web - a network of several overlapping food chains

Lesson Plan with Worksheet http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/scienceclips/teachersresources/ages10_11/tr_interdependence_lp.shtml#

Online Food Web http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/scienceclips/ages/10_11/interdependence.shtml

Pond Food Web (can change population of animals and see chain reaction) http://www.eduweb.com/portfolio/earthsystems/food/foodweb4.html

Create an online web. http://www.vtaide.com/png/foodchains.htm

Using Science Mini Bulletin Board Set Food Chains and Webs have students build the following food webs:

• desert
• forest
• ocean

Day 9 Energy Pyramids

TCAP Coach Lesson 5

Day 10 Changes that Affect Population Size

http://www.dnr.state.il.us/lands/education/CLASSRM/Kits.htm