Food Chain Lesson Plan:

Introduction:
Lesson Topic: The Food Chain
Length: 60 minutes
Standard of Learning:
3.5 The student will investigate and understand relationships among organisms in aquatic and terrestrial
food chains. Key concepts include
● producer, consumer, decomposer;
● herbivore, carnivore, omnivore; and
● predator and prey.
Learning Objectives:
● Students will be able to identify examples of producers, consumers, and decomposers
● Students will be able to explain relationship between producers, consumers, and decomposers
● Students will be able to identify examples of herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores
● Students will understand the relationship between predator and prey in the food chain
● Students will be able to create food chains
Teaching and Learning Sequence:
Introduction/Anticipatory Set
● The lesson will begin with the video clip in my presentation
● Students will watch the short clip
● I will then ask them questions about the video, such as “Who was doing the hunting, and who was
being hunted?” “Do you think this ever happens the other way around?” “Can you think of any
other examples of this?”
Lesson Development
● Now, I will continue with the presentation
● Students will watch the presentation slides, and listen to my narrative. The slides have limited text,
so I will explain each concept, instead of reading words from a slide. The slides are to provide a
visual for the students.
● Throughout the presentation I will ask questions, such as “Which does not belong?” when
showing groups of images before providing an explanation for a term. Also, as the different terms
are explained (producer, consumer, carnivore, etc) I will ask students for additional examples.
● After the presentation has concluded, the students will do a group activity. The groups will be the
the groups the students are in due to the seating arrangement. I will provide magazines that contain
images of animals, such as National Geographic. Students will be asked to create a food chain
example using pictures they find in the magazines. Once students are finished, each group will
share their example with the class.
Closure
● As a group, students will share their food chain example with the class
● I will use this to gauge the understanding level of students
● Students will have the chance to ask questions to each group
● Once all students have shared, I will reinforce key concepts
Assignment
● As a homework assignment, students will be asked to write a journal entry based on what we
learned today. Students will be asked to choose an animal and write from that animal’s
perspective. Students will explain this animal’s role in the food chain and students will need to
include vocabulary words from today’s lesson, such as herbivore, carnivore, omnivore, predatory,
prey, etc.