Science Content:
Analyze plant and animal structures and functions needed for survival and describe the flow of energy through a system that all organisms use to survive.
Compare changes in an ecosystem's habitat that affect its survival.
Estimated Time: 30-45 minutes
During this lesson you will read the story of Mighty Mouse to the class. Students will become familiar with the vocabulary by carrying out a guessing game with their classmates. Then the students will work in groups to build an ecosystem on paper.
Part 1: The teacher will read aloud A Day in the Life of Mighty Mouse as students pay attention to the vocabulary used in the story. Students will then play a guessing game using these vocabulary words from the story (key terms for the Life Science unit)
Part 2: Students will work in groups to create an ecosystem on paper. The teacher will guide students as they complete each section of the ecosystem to sort their list of things that they created into Producers, Consumers, Decomposers, and Abiotic.