Kira Castle

EDUC 424A
Dr. McKenzie
Curriculum Unit
2/11/16

Title: Living Systems and Their Relationship With the World

Grade level: 3rd Grade
Rationale:
My goal in teaching is to create students who are life long
learners. By this, I mean that I want what I teach them to have a
continuing impact in their lives, so that learning in the future is
something they have a desire to do. I want not only for my
students to find success in my class, but to thoroughly enjoy the
material they are learning. My goal for this unit, and my future
teaching career in general, is to set up learning in an organized
and understandable way so that the students are able to follow
the rules but get to the answers in their own way. I believe that
this method of guided instruction is the way children learn best.
If answers are simply given before thought is required, the
material is much less likely to stay in the students brain. This
unit exemplifies this idea in the way that the lessons are set up.
Each lesson is meant to introduce the foundational pieces of a
concept, but allow the inquiry to be done by the students. I want
my students to think for themselves so that their life is filled with
learning that inspires them.
Major Objectives:
The major goals for this unit are to introduce the idea of living
systems and deepen the students understanding for how
everything is interconnected. I want the students to be able to
understand these concepts from individual species to the entire
ecosystem.
For SOL 3.5 the students at the end of the lesson will need to
know how to:
o Distinguish among producers, consumers, herbivores,
omnivores, carnivores, and decomposers.
o Create and interpret a model of a food chain showing
producers and consumers.
o Explain how a change in one part of a food chain might
affect the rest of the food chain.
o Identify sequences of feeding relationships in a food chain.
o Differentiate between predators and prey.
o Infer that most food chains begin with a green plant.
For SOL 3.6, the students will need to know how to:
o Describe major water-related environments and examples
of animals and plants that live in each.
o Describe major dry-land environments and examples of
animals and plants that live in each.
o Compare and contrast water-related and dry land
environments.
o Distinguish between a population and a community.

o Explain how animals and plants use resources in their

environment.
o Analyze models or diagrams of different water-related
environments in order to describe the community of
organisms each contains and interpret how the organisms
use the resources in that environment.
o Analyze models or diagrams of different dry-land
environments in order to describe the community of
organisms each contains and interpret how the organisms
use the resources in that environment.
o Predict what would occur if a population in a specific
environment were to die.
SOL:
Living Systems
3.5 The student will investigate and understand relationships among
organisms in aquatic and terrestrial food chains. Key concepts include
a) Producer, consumer, decomposer;
b) Herbivore, carnivore, omnivore; and
c) Predator and prey.
3.6 The student will investigate and understand that ecosystems
support a diversity of plants and animals that share limited resources.
Key concepts include
a) Aquatic ecosystems;
b) Terrestrial ecosystems;
c) Populations and communities; and
d.) The human role in conserving limited resources
Day
1
2
3
4
5
6

3.5a
X
X

3.5b

3.5c

X
X

3.6a
X
X
X
x
x
x

3.6b
X
X
X
x
x
x

3.6c

3.6d

X
x
x

x
x

Overview: This unit plan will take a total of 6 days, the 6th day being
used for a final assessment. The basic summary of this information is
understanding food chains (predator/prey,
producer/consumer/decomposer, herbivore, carnivore, omnivore) and
ecosystems as a whole (aquatic, terrestrial, populations &
communities, and the human role).

List

of
Materials:
See each

individual lesson for materials for that day. A *

means the material is at the end of document.
Special Safety Concerns: See each individual lesson for safety
concerns of the day.
Lessons:
Day 1: The lesson today will be started with an introduction to the
whole idea of
living systems. The main focus will be on food chains with
producers, consumers, and decomposers.
These are the concepts that will be explained:
o Everything needs energy to live
o Animals get energy from food
o Plants use sunlight, water and nutrients (photosynthesis)
o Introduction of food chain
o How energy is passed
o Begins with sun passing energy to plant life
o All living things fall into three categories
o Producers
o Consumers
o Decomposers
o Main Vocabulary: Producer, consumer, decomposer, food
chain
Materials
o Book about food chains
o Blank Bingo cards (1 for each student) *
o Pictures of producers, consumers, and decomposers*
o Science Journal
o Markers
o Scrap paper
o Virginia Animals for Food chains*
o Index cards and paper clips
Overview:
To present this information, the class will first watch a
video on producers, consumers, and decomposers. Then, I will
read the book about food chains. The next portion after reading

will be asking students questions about what they have learned.

These questions could be: What do all organisms need to live?
Why would we call green plants producers? Name some
producers. What does the word consume mean? Name some
consumers. What is a food chain? How do producers, consumers,
and decomposers fit into a food chain? Along with this I will
continuously share examples and pictures of each organism we
talk about.
Activity 1:
The students will get to play bingo with their new
knowledge on producers, consumers, and decomposers. Each
student will be given a blank bingo card and will be asked to
write P, D, or C in each one of the boxes, using each 8 times. I
will hold up a card with the picture of an organism and they will
write it on a small piece of paper and place it over the correct
square. A student wins when they get a full row correct. Switch
up cards after each time so students feel that their opportunities
are equal.
Activity 2:
Split the class into groups of 3-4. Have each team draw an
animal that is from Virginia. Have the team research what that
animal consumes. Have them further research to create a full
food chain. Each group will produce a full food chain for their
animal. Remind students to remember the sun. Have each group
create their food chain using index cards and paperclips. Have
each group present their food chain to the class. As a class
discuss what were to happen to each chain if one card was
removed.
Assessment:
Ask the whole class questions such as: Why are producers
important in a food chain? What is the role of a consumer in a
food chain? Why do we need decomposers?
Homework:
Have the students write down these questions in their
ongoing journals. Ask them the question: What happens when
something is removed from a food chain? What long-lasting
impact would it have? Have the students answer this question for
homework. Have them also think about the impact this change
could have on them.
Safety Concerns:
o Paperclips may prick students
o Potential for paper cuts
Day 2: To start, have class discuss their responses in their journals.
Check for

understanding of material. Ask class to recall the vocab words

used the day before. The goal vocabulary words to be learned
today are:
o Carnivore
o Omnivore
o Herbivore
Materials:
o Chart paper
o 11x17 inch paper (1 per student)
o Crayons
o Poster board
o Bulletin board paper
o Markers and other art supplies
Recap
Ask students to discuss the answers they wrote in their journals.
Have students share with the class to go over what was learned
the previous day.
Activity 1
Begin by asking students what they had for dinner last
night. As the students tell you, write the responses on the chart
paper. Once all the students have had the chance to speak, cut
out each different item. Ask the students to help you put these
into three different groups. These will be plants, animals, or some
sort of combination. Discuss the way in which these were
grouped. Explain to students the words that are used to describe
these types of meals (herbivore, carnivore, or omnivore). Let
students ask questions. Next the teacher will read a story about
an animal, either aquatic or terrestrial. Ask the students what the
animal eats and have them classify the animal. Then have each
student fold their piece of 11X17 inch paper into 6 equal boxes.
In each box the students will write one animal they are interested
in. Prompt with ideas if students are stumped. Group the
students into groups of 3-4. Have each group make a poster with
3 columns for Herbivore, Carnivore, and Omnivore. Have each
member of the group cut out their 6 cards. Every member of the
group will put their cards in the middle of the group and the
whole deck will be shuffled. The students will then take turns
flipping over one card at a time and taping it into the right
column. Encourage students to help each other, and they may
ask teacher for guidance if needed.
Have the students hang their posters around the room, and
give them time to explore each groups chart. Ask them to look
for similarities in each of the categories and report back their
findings to the class. Explain to the students that animals in each

category have similar traits based on the foods they eat. For
example, carnivores have strong teeth to eat meat, and so on.
Assessment/Homework
Have each student choose a habitat they are interested in
(forest, desert, ocean, prairie, etc.). The students will create a
mural for their specific habitat. They will include the terms
herbivore, carnivore, omnivore, producer, consumer, and
decomposer. This will tie the current lesson and the one from the
previous day together. Essentially this mural will be a large food
web for their selected habitat. Remind them to include the sun,
plant life, arrows, and color code if necessary.
Safety Concerns
o Paper cuts
Day 3: To start the lesson, have each student pull out their mural from
the previous
class. Have the students get with a partner and share their
mural. Have them talk for about 5 minutes on the food web they
created. Students will turn these in after discussing. The terms
that will be focused on today are:
o Predator
o Prey
Materials
o Acorns
o Four very large circles cut from brown paper
o Predator/Prey Game Cards*
o Headbands made from paper
o Staplers
o Science journals
o Clay
o Writing paper
o Books about animals
Activity 1
Briefly introduce the topic of the day in class. Tell the
students that the class today will be spent outside, so paying
attention to the instructions is important. Bring class outside.
Play a quick game of Mouse, Mouse, Owl which is the same as
Duck Duck Goose, but with terms relating to predator/prey
relationships. After playing ask students questions about what
happened. Who chased who? What was the owl doing? Who was
the predator and who was the prey?
Activity 2
Predator/Prey charades. Have each student choose a
partner. Give each set of students a predator and a prey. Some
examples are: fox/rabbit, lion/antelope, whale/krill,
shark/minnow, snake/mouse, etc. Each pair of students will take

turns acting out these animals while the class guesses. After
each pair goes, the class will determine who is the predator and
who is the prey. Have the students record some examples of
predator/prey relationships in their journals.
Activity 3
Predator/Prey simulation game. Give students pre-made
headbands, already labeled with a picture of their role. The
predators in this game are hawks and the prey are squirrels. of
the class with be hawks and will be squirrels. Take the
students into a large field to play this game. The field will be
divided into three sections: food fields, hunting forest, and safe
zone. The acorns will be spread all across the Food Fields. The
large brown circles will be placed in hunting forest. The goal of
the game is survival. The squirrels need to find and keep at least
3 acorns to survive the day. They do so by collecting the acorns
from Food Field and returning them to the Safe Zone to bury
them. The squirrels can find temporary safety in the Hunting
Forest by standing on one of the brown circles (representing
trees) where a hawk could not reach them. The hawks, in order
to survive a day, need at least 2 squirrels. They are only allowed
to hunt in the Hunting Forest. To successfully hunt a squirrel, the
hawks must tag a squirrel and take them outside of the playing
field. Start the simulation by yelling hunt! and end it by calling
night time! Have the students sit down where they finished and
discuss as a class what happened. Record the number of
survivors. Talk about the results. Have students switch roles to
play one more time.
After the game, have students collect materials and head
back inside. In the classroom, further discussion by talking about
different effects on predator/prey relationships. For example,
what would happen if there was only one hawk and 20 squirrels.
Or only 1 squirrel and 20 hawks. Discuss the changes that would
happen to the system.
Assessment/Homework
Have the students bring home their science journals and
write a 2-paragraph description of what they learned in class
today. Some prompts are: what are some examples of
predator/prey relationships? How do predators/prey interact with
each other? What would happen if a predators prey were to
disappear? And finally, have the student write their favorite thing
they did in class that day.
Safety Concerns
o Seasonal allergies/Grass allergies
o Running/tagging could get aggressive, monitor well
o Intense competitiveness, monitor to avoid this
o Scrapes/cuts

Day 4: The lesson will begin with the students bringing out their
science journals
and discussing the predator/prey concept. The next topic will be
introduced. The main vocabulary and concepts for today are:
o Populations and Communities
o Aquatic Ecosystems
o Terrestrial Ecosystems
Materials
o Pictures showing different communities*
o Chart paper
o Markers
o Red Marker (for teacher)
o Science Journals
o Vocabulary Notecards*
Introduction
Start by introducing the topic of the day. Introduce the
terms Population and Community. Ask the students about the
community that they live in. Have them describe the different
stores, restaurants, people, jobs, etc. Give examples in the town
using the terms population and community. Ask the students
what would happen to the community if the grocery story went
out of business. Ask what they think the most important business
or who the most important people in town are.
Activity 1
Group students into groups of about 3-4. Give each group a
picture of a different community and a large piece of chart paper.
Have them glue their picture of the community onto the top of
the chart paper. Under the picture, have the groups write all of
the organisms they see in the picture. With that, have the groups
write what each of these organisms need to survive. Once the
group has completed this, walk around with a red marker to each
group and cross out one of the organisms in the picture,
simulating that it has died out. Have them make a prediction on
the bottom of their chart what they think is going to happen to
the community if this organism were to die out. Have them write
it out like a hypothesis If _______ were to die out, then______.
Once each group has done this, have them post it up on the wall
somewhere in the room. Let the groups wander around to look at
other groups. Once they have had the chance to see every
groups, have each group present their poster to the class. After
this, the teacher will hand out the vocabulary notecards for the
students to cut up and have for the future.

To follow up, have students sit back down in their seats and
have a full class discussion. Ask them what they have learned
about communities and populations. Answer any questions as
needed. Give them a prompt to write in their journals. This will be
another 2-paragraph reflection. The first paragraph will be to
explore what they think would happen to the local community if
the grocery story went out of business. The second paragraph
would be to explain what they think would happen in an
ecosystem if the entire bug population died out. They should
draw out each of these diagrams to further understanding.
Assessment/Homework
The in class work, group presentations, and discussion can
all be used for assessment. The journal will be used as both a
form of assessment and homework.
Safety Concerns:
o Paper cuts
Day 5: The main idea of today is the human role in conservation of
natural
resources. The main concepts we will focus on are:
o Environmental impact of humans
o Harms of pollution to all living things
o Ways to reduce, reuse, recycle
Materials
o Protecting Our Planet Video
o 2 cups dry spiral pasta
o pencils, erasers, rulers
o crayons, markers
o masking tape
Introduction
Start by reading over the previous days journal entries. Ask
students all about how populations and communities work. Ask
about the importance of every organism involved in a
community. Ask about what happens when one organism dies
out. How much of an impact does this have? Proceed into todays
lesson by asking about how the students think organisms can die
off. Do they think humans could have an impact on natural
ecosystems? Introduce the topic of pollution. Do they know what
pollution is? Can humans create pollution? When all of these
ideas and questions are brewing in their head, play the video
Protecting Our Planet (select certain pieces to watch). After
watching this, have students write in their journals briefly what
they know about pollution and how they can have an impact on
the world.
Activity 1

The activity of the day will be based on pollution. Have the

students stand in a large circle. Divide the circle in half with the
masking tape. Describe to them that half of the circle is land and
the other half is water. Then group the students into 5 groups.
Group 1 is humans, 2 is plants, 3 is fish, four is plant eating
animals, and group 5 is fish eating animals. Start by giving group
1 (humans) each a handful of the pasta. Let this group scatter
the pasta all over both sides of the circle. Tell the students that
this is different forms of pollution. Some example of this are gas,
exhaust, garbage, and oil. Have group one come back to the
circle. Have group 2 (plants) enter the circle and pick up a piece
of pasta and stand where they found it. Explain that these plants
have been directly affected by our pollution. Then have groups 3
and 4 enter the circle (fish and plant eating animals). Group 3
will be on the water side and group on the land side. Have each
student eat (link arms with) one of the plants in their area.
Explain that this is how animals are affected by human
population. Finally have group 5 enter (fish eating animals). Have
them eat either fish or animals. Have the students look around
and see the chain of who was affected. Ask them who created
the pollution. Who does it look like isnt affected? How are
humans affected in this? Then have the humans step back into
the circle and eat fish and animals.
After the activity, have the class come back together to
discuss what chains they saw. Who was affected by who? How
can this affect the environment and ecosystem? How do we as
humans affect the environment? Do our actions end up hurting
ourselves?
Group students in their 5 groups and have them discuss
ways to reduce, reuse, and recycle. Have them think hard about
how much impact we can have on our environment. Have each
group create a poster of how we can be better to our
environment by reducing, reusing, and recycling. Each group will
present at the end of class.
Assessment/Homework
Again, have the students reflect on what they learned in
their journal. The posters will be another form of assessment.
Class participation is another aspect.
Safety Concerns:
o Paper cuts
Day 6: Today will begin with a large recap on everything that was
learned in the
past 5 days. Have the students pull out their vocabulary cards
and practice with other students or by themselves for the first
couple days of class. The activity of the day will be for each
student to create a complex and fully detailed food web. The

requirements are to include each vocabulary term, the two types

of ecosystems, and how human pollution can impact this web.
They may use whatever means necessary, teacher will provide
all utensils for creating these in class. At the end of the day, the
students will turn in their science journal and their food web.
Materials
o Pencils, markers, crayons, pens
o Poster paper
o Pictures of animals
o Pictures of pollutants

Teaching Aids:
Day1:

Day 3:

Day 4:

Assessment Tools: Science journals, class participation,

presentations, discussions, and final food web.
Assessment Rubric:
Journals
Presentati Discussio
Participati Final
Total
ons
ns
on
Food
Points
Web
/40
/15
/15
/15
/15
/100
*4 journal entries, 10 points each
Extension Activities: Each of these activities are designed to offer a
variety of learning methods so that each student can succeed. There is
individual, small group, and large group activities so that students can
find areas to flourish. There is also inside and outside work so that the
lessons are mixed up enough to keep it interesting for all students.
Sources of Information:
Day 1:
http://www.doe.virginia.gov/testing/sol/standards_docs/science/2010/le
sson_plans/grade3/living_sys/sess_3-5a.pdf (where I got this lesson
plan from)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPZI2M1fDi8 (video to start
lesson)
Day 2:
http://www.doe.virginia.gov/testing/sol/scope_sequence/science_scope_
sequence/scopeseq_science3.pdf (lesson plan idea, modified)
Day 3:
http://www.doe.virginia.gov/testing/sol/scope_sequence/science_scope_
sequence/scopeseq_science3.pdf (lesson plan idea, modified)
Day 4:
http://www.doe.virginia.gov/testing/sol/scope_sequence/science_scope_
sequence/scopeseq_science3.pdf (lesson plan idea, modified)
Day 5: http://www.discoveryeducation.com/teachers/free-lessonplans/protecting-our-planet.cfm (lesson plan idea, modified)