Professional Documents
Culture Documents
(Indirect Instruction)
The student will know that a change in any particular environment can be advantageous and disadvantageous by
identifying whether organisms are harmed or benefit when there is change within a food web at 80% accuracy
individually.
21st Century Skills (1): Academic Language Demand (if Handbook applicable)
● Language Function:
Critical Thinking and Problem o Identify
Solving: The students will be given
scenarios that they must investigate in ▪ The students will identify the benefits and the harms of
order to find a solution. The answers changes in an organism’s environment.
are not clearly stated, so the students
must use the information given to them ● Content/Academic Vocabulary:
them in order to justify their answer. o Benefit - to positively affect
Students are required to problem solve o Harm - to negatively affect
and critically think to answer each
scenario. ● Discourse possibilities:
o Teacher to student discourse:
Communication: The students will be
working in groups to investigate each ▪ During explore, the teacher will discuss with students as
scenario. They must work together to a whole group to elicit their thoughts about how the
justify their answers. Every student terms benefit and harm relate to food webs.
will be accountable for their own chart,
but by working in groups they may o Student to student discourse:
persuade or challenge their peers’
responses. ▪ During explore and explain, the students will discuss
with each other how changes in an environment benefit
and harm other organisms in the food web.
The teacher will tell the students that there has been a
shortage of ecologists all over the world. The teacher
will then explain that they signed the class up to be
volunteer ecologists to help out for the day. They will
need to “travel the world” and conduct studies. The
teacher will launch the lesson with the questions below:
the forest:
Scenario: There is something out here called a
grouse. I have never even heard of it…. Oh sorry! Hi! I
am a volunteer ecologist too. Can you help me figure out
how this missing grouse animal affects the ecosystem?
the grasslands/savannah:
Scenario: Hey fellow ecologists! Thanks for
helping out. There was once an infestation of termites
here. Local authorities decided it would be best to
exterminate them to control their population.
Unfortunately, the extermination wiped out all of the
termites completely. Will this affect anything?
the desert:
Scenario: Hey!! I’ve been waiting for you!! I
live out here in the desert and I just want these
rattlesnakes gone! I think I wished too hard and now
they’re all missing! I hope this doesn’t mess up the
ecosystem. Can you study this?
3. Explain (3) After the students circulate, the teacher should direct the 5 min.
students to move back to their regular seats and compare
charts with their table. The teacher should also ask the
students to revisit the questions that they completed
before the activity. The students will find that removing
an animal from an ecosystem can actually be beneficial
to some organisms and really harmful to others. The
teacher should lead the whole group discussion to ensure
that everyone has come up with the same answers and
address any outliers that the students may have analyzed
from the data they collected. The student will know that
a change in any particular environment can be
advantageous and disadvantageous by identifying which
organisms are harmed and which organisms benefit if an
organism is removed from a food web.
Discussions questions:
• Now that you have completed the activity, how
does something as small as an insect going
extinct affect the whole food web?
○ Weather changes
○ Lack of food
https://youtu.be/JWdpkA9cR00
Materials/Technology (1):
Teacher materials:
- Scenario cards printed (attached)
- Food webs printed (attached)
- Maps of the biome locations printed (attached)
- Pictures of items for the tables: sunglasses, sunscreen, Savannah hat, winter gloves, torch, umbrella
- Quizizz link: (Live link will be produced)
- Elaborate video: https://youtu.be/JWdpkA9cR00
Student materials:
- Chart
- Pencil
Reflection on lesson:
The students really loved this lesson plan! It challenged them to work together and to challenge each other’s thoughts.
When I first asked if removing an animal from a food web was harmful or beneficial, they initially thought it could be
only harmful, but after the lesson, they realized changes could be simultaneously beneficial! As I was circulating
throughout the first rotations of the explore portion, students were leaving the benefit column of their charts blank.
After guiding them through and asking them how each animal is affected, they realized that changes could also benefit
certain organisms.
I would probably think twice before doing randomized groups. Some groups worked great together, while some argued.
I had to intervene a couple of times to break things up. I also had one group that was just goofing around. This class
was not the the class I had been observing for the majority of my clinicals; This class was my partner teacher’s class, so
I wasn’t too familiar with their personalities. I could have done better to accommodate my struggling learners who’s
group members were not helpful to them. I think I failed those students out of a quality lesson. This is something I
would definitely change when I teach again, which I definitely will in the future.
For the students that were really able to grasp the content of the lesson, they loved it! Even telling me how good of a
lesson it was before they left. The students were really given the chance to problem solve and critically think about the
scenarios. The only factor not on my side was time. I think the lesson felt a little rushed and we could have gone in
depth more for the explain portion of the lesson. Because of time, the assessment also did not go as well as planned,
and they felt pressed for time.
Who benefits? Who is harmed?
List the organisms Are they a producer, List the organisms Are they a producer,
here decomposer, or here decomposer, or
consumer? consumer?
Table 1
Biome:
Table 2
Biome:
Table 3
Biome:
Table 4
Biome:
Table 5
Biome:
Table 6
Biome: