SC.7.L.17.1

Students will assume the role of the prosecution team or the defense team during jury selection of a case where a Florida panther is charged with the predation of a deer.  Teams will learn about the jury selection process in criminal trials and apply their knowledge of the roles and relationships between species in an ecosystem to develop a method for selecting a fair jury in this model eliciting activity.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations.  Click here to learn more about MEAs and how they can transform your classroom.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson plan, students will apply knowledge of roles and relationships in an ecosystem to develop a defense strategy in an imaginary trial where a panther is being prosecuted for predation of deer. They will explore the roles of various consumers in an ecosystem, their places in a food web, and the impact of limiting factors on populations (and vice-versa). Along the way, students will compare the rule of nature to the rule of law that people live by and consider the importance of the 6th Amendment in protecting the rights of citizens in the United States.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will analyze an intended to support reading in the content area. The article explains how climate change is reducing the amount of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean. Within this sea ice is found algae that forms the base of Arctic food webs. As the sea ice goes, so does the algae, which in turn could affect the entire Arctic ecosystem. This lesson includes a note-taking guide, text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, answer keys, and a writing rubric.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will analyze an informational text that shows how a seemingly harmless invasive species of jumping worm may cause much more destruction than once thought. The Asian jumping worm eats the debris on the forest floor at a rate that out-competes the native worms so much so that it is causing a number of problems, including forest re-growth. This lesson plan is designed to support reading in the content area. It includes a note-taking guide, text-dependent questions, a writing prompt, answer keys, and a writing rubric.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson uses everyday household materials to provide students with a visual representation of the energy flow through an ecosystem, emphasizing the inefficiency of this energy transfer. It provides students with the opportunity to calculate the amount of energy available for transfer between organisms integrating math into your lesson while the extension activity allows students who are stronger in language to shine as they create a newspaper article.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will participate in an interactive activity in small groups. After briefly finding out what their organisms consume or what consume them, students will physically connect organisms using string and pushpins. Once the web is tangled, you will go around and designate a "removed" organism. Students will follow all the strings attached and explain how the connected organisms are affected. Eventually, in the mist of the class discussion, students will realize that the entire ecosystem is affected.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson is designed to get students to understand how a food chain works using an invasive species like the Lionfish. It is timely and students here on the Gulf Coast can relate to the problem.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students learn about producer, consumers, and decomposers while playing a game. After the game student's will work in groups to create food webs that show how energy is transferred though an ecosystem.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will explore an ecosystem and create a food web illustrating the relationship among producers, consumers and decomposers. They will also summarize these relationships in a paragraph.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson, students will create a food web utilizing the given information and use a 3D graphic organizer (Triarama) to define and provide examples for producers, consumers, and decomposers.

Type: Lesson Plan

A long-term project in which students create a labeled ecosystem diorama out of a recycled pizza box as they complete an introductory ecology unit.

Type: Lesson Plan

Students will be identifying organisms as producers, consumers, or decomposers. They will be establishing the relationship that exists between food and energy and will demonstrate this understanding through the construction of food chains and food webs.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this Model-Eliciting Activity (MEA), students will analyze a set of data to determine the best eradication technique for a town experiencing a mosquito infestation. Students will need to consider cost, impact on the environment, and effectiveness of the methods presented to them.

Model Eliciting Activities, MEAs, are open-ended, interdisciplinary problem-solving activities that are meant to reveal students’ thinking about the concepts embedded in realistic situations. MEAs resemble engineering problems and encourage students to create solutions in the form of mathematical and scientific models. Students work in teams to apply their knowledge of science and mathematics to solve an open-ended problem while considering constraints and tradeoffs. Students integrate their ELA skills into MEAs as they are asked to clearly document their thought processes. MEAs follow a problem-based, student-centered approach to learning, where students are encouraged to grapple with the problem while the teacher acts as a facilitator. To learn more about MEAs visit: https://www.cpalms.org/cpalms/mea.aspx

Type: Lesson Plan

Students are assigned one of Florida's ecosystems and are guided through a series of lessons that cover SC.7.L.17.1, SC.7.L.17.2, SC.7.L.17.3, culminating in a project.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson is intended as the first part of a 4 part series. Part 1 is a powerpoint discussing terminology in Ecology including abiotic/biotic factors; symbiotic relationships [descriptions and examples of all 3]; producer/consumers; predator/prey; food chain;food web. Part 2 is a powerpoint that covers the biomes of the world and incorporates the terminology from part 1. Part 3 is a biomes lab activity, and Part 4 is a jeopardy review activity.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson is intended as part 2 of a 4 part lesson series. It is a PowerPoint that covers Biomes of the World, including their characteristics and different producers and consumers. It can be used as a stand alone lesson as well.

Type: Lesson Plan

This is a fun lab activity to be used as part 3 of a 4 part series on Interdependence. It can also be used as a stand alone activity. Animal crackers are used - they can be eaten at the end of the activity- so double check with your students about any food allergies (ie gluten).

Type: Lesson Plan

This is a five day lesson integrating Science, Reading and Writing. It is developed on a Reading lesson plan format using Shared Reading, Core Reading, Guided Reading and centers but can easily be transferred on to a Science 5E lesson format. The versatility of the lesson and the integration between subjects lends itself to it being widely used among teachers for different reasons; whether the teacher's need be in Science, Reading or Writing the lesson provides opportunities for all areas to be addressed. Most importantly, it offers the busy teacher an opportunity to implement one lesson to cover three subjects.

Type: Lesson Plan

Explore energy transfer in the Antarctic ecosystem to help Brian solve the mystery of the declining krill population in this interacitve tutorial.

Type: Original Student Tutorial

Patrick Milligan discusses the relationship of organisms in the Kenyan savannah.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Expert

Dr. Andrea Larsen describes interactions between bacteria and fish that allow both to thrive.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Expert

In this video, Mark Tancig explains how decomposers are vital to the process of composting.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Professional/Enthusiast

In this video, Molly Jameson explains how worm composting can work for the classroom.

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Teaching Idea

Communication is a big part of science. Have your students put their ideas down on paper!

Download the CPALMS Perspectives video student note taking guide.

Type: Perspectives Video: Teaching Idea

In this activity and extensions, students focus on a marine Antarctic food web and work to organize the food web using an existing energy flow diagram.

Type: Teaching Idea

In this activity, the students will investigate the inter-relationships of predator and prey and the diversity of food items in the sea.

Type: Teaching Idea

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. Species that live in the open ocean may suffer as sea ice disappears. As sea ice disappears, the algae embedded and living in the sea ice will be reduced. This article explores the evidence collected to show the role of algae in driving the Arctic food web.

Type: Text Resource

This resource is designed to support reading in the content area. The article describes new research on the ways Asian jumping worms are affecting American forests. Findings show they are much more of a problem than initially feared. Because Asian jumping worms have bigger appetites than other earthworms found in the U.S., they are much more successful at eating the debris on the forest floor. This exposes vulnerable areas that may bring more diseases and invasive plants. It can also prevent delicate seedlings from taking root.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area.Tiny particles of gold have been found in the leaves of trees growing high above an underground supply of it. Biogeochemical prospecting uses living organisms to locate precious metals deep beneath the surface. From termite mounds to "roo poo" from a kangaroo, biological clues point prospectors in the right direction.

Type: Text Resource

This informational text resource is intended to support reading in the content area. This is a fabulous article that shows the role and relationship among predators and consumers while also incorporating the process of photosynthesis.

Type: Text Resource

This lesson is about the flow of energy in ecosystems. The setting is Plimoth Plantation, a living history museum in Plymouth, Massachusetts, USA, where students will learn about the first Thanksgiving meal in America, celebrated in 1621 by early American settlers and Wampanoag Indians. By examining this meal and comparing it to a modern day Thanksgiving celebration, students will be able to explore the way in which food energy moves and is transformed in an ecosystem. The learning goals focus on the movement of energy from one feeding level to the next within a food web, the way in which energy changes form, and the inefficiency of energy transfer, which in turn affects the availability of food energy for organisms at the highest feeding level. The lesson is directed at high school level biology students. Students should be familiar already with food webs, food chains, and trophic (feeding) levels. They should also be familiar with the general equations for photosynthesis: 6H₂O + 6CO₂ + Energy(light) -> C₆H₁₂O₆ + 6O₂ and cell respiration: C₆H₁₂O₆ + 6O₂ -> 6H₂O + 6CO₂ +Energy(about 38ATP), and understand the basic purpose of these processes in nature. This lesson can be completed during one long classroom period, or can be divided over two or more class meetings. The duration of the lesson will depend on prior knowledge of the students and on the amount of time allotted for student discussion. There are no supplies required for this lesson other than the downloadable worksheets (accessed on this BLOSSOMS site), paper and some glue or tape. 

Type: Video/Audio/Animation

Excerpted from NOVA: "Volcanoes of the Deep", this video segment reveals strange and luminescent forms of life, such as giant tube worms, spider crabs, and billions of microbes clumped together like a cottony web. The site where life began on Earth may have been where black smokers stream from hydrothermal vents and chimneys along the sea floor.

Type: Video/Audio/Animation

This video segment from Interactive NOVA: "Earth" describes the role of decomposers in the living world. We've all been victimized by decomposers: Lettuce rots; bread becomes moldy. Bacteria and fungi often consume our food before we have a chance to. However, if we stop to consider the important work that decomposers do, we may be a little less disgruntled by their presence.

Type: Video/Audio/Animation

This PBS Nova video highlights the flow of energy through a food web of the coral reef ecosystem. A background essay and discussion questions are also provided.

Type: Video/Audio/Animation