Ecosystems | Independent Practice
Students will independently explore how plants, animals, and nonliving parts of an ecosystem work together. Through reading, sorting, and short written responses, students will explain relationships in a local ecosystem and identify how changes can affect living things.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| ecosystem | A place where living and nonliving things interact. |
| organism | A living thing, such as a plant, animal, or fungus. |
| producer | A plant or other living thing that makes its own food. |
| consumer | An animal that gets energy by eating plants or other animals. |
| decomposer | A living thing that breaks down dead plants and animals. |
| habitat | The place where an organism lives and gets what it needs. |
| food chain | A sequence that shows how energy moves from one living thing to another. |
| adaptation | A body part or behavior that helps a living thing survive. |
Display a large ecosystem image. Give students 2 minutes to write what they notice and what they wonder. Then direct students to independently label at least three living and three nonliving parts.
Observe the image, write notices and wonders, and label living and nonliving parts on their paper.
Briefly review ecosystem vocabulary using examples and one simple food chain. Model one example of how a plant, animal, and nonliving part depend on one another.
Listen, follow along in notebooks, and add key vocabulary notes.
Give students a short ecosystem passage. Direct them to read quietly and underline evidence of producers, consumers, decomposers, and habitat needs.
Read independently, annotate the text, and identify evidence in the passage.
Provide picture cards or a worksheet sort. Students place each item into living/nonliving and producer/consumer/decomposer groups, then write one sentence explaining each choice.
Sort cards or complete the worksheet and justify each classification in writing.
Ask students to choose one ecosystem from the materials and create a simple web or chain showing connections among at least five organisms and one nonliving factor.
Create an ecosystem web or chain and use arrows or labels to show relationships.
Prompt students with two questions: How would one change affect the ecosystem? and Which organism depends on the most things? Encourage complete sentences and vocabulary use.
Write short responses using evidence from their work and vocabulary words.
Have students share one connection they discovered in an ecosystem and one thing that could change it. End by asking them to complete the sentence: 'In an ecosystem, living and nonliving things are connected because ___.'.
Students draw a local ecosystem or a nearby habitat and label at least 5 living and 3 nonliving parts. Write 3 sentences explaining how one organism depends on another part of the ecosystem.