Rida Rangoonwala

University of Houston
Science for ELLs

Teachers Name: Rida Rangoonwala

Basic Lesson Components

Grade Level: 3rd

Time Estimate: 45 minutes over two days

Science Content:
Every living thing needs energy in order to live. Everytime animals do something (run, jump) they
use energy to do so.

Animals get energy from the food they eat, and all living things get energy from food. Plants use
sunlight, water and nutrients to get energy (in a process called photosynthesis). Energy is necessary
for living beings to grow.

Retrieved from:
http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/content/animals/kidscorner/foodchain/foodchain.htm

A food chain is a linear sequence of organisms through which nutrients and energy pass as one
organism eats another. Let's look at the parts of a typical food chain, starting from the bottom—the
producers—and moving upward.
 At the base of the food chain lie the primary producers. The primary producers are autotrophs
and are most often photosynthetic organisms such as plants, algae, or cyanobacteria.
 The organisms that eat the primary producers are called primary consumers. Primary
consumers are usually herbivores, plant-eaters, though they may be algae eaters or bacteria
eaters.
 The organisms that eat the primary consumers are called secondary consumers. Secondary
consumers are generally meat-eaters—carnivores.
Retrieved from: https://www.khanacademy.org/science/biology/ecology/intro-to-ecosystems/a/food-
chains-food-webs

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Retrieved from: https://annodominigroup.wordpress.com/tag/food/

TEKS:
§112.14. (b) (9) Organisms and environments. The student knows that organisms have
characteristics that help them survive and can describe patterns, cycles, systems, and relationships
within the environments. The student is expected to:
(B) identify and describe the flow of energy in a food chain and predict how changes in a food chain
affect the ecosystem such as removal of frogs from a pond or bees from a field

Content Objective(s):
The student will use their knowledge of the characteristics of living things to create simple food
chains.
The student will identify how changes in a food chain can affect the ecosystem.

ELPS:
Listening 2G: The student is expected to understand the general meaning, main points, and important
details of spoken information ranging from situations in which topics, language, and contexts are
familiar to unfamiliar
Speaking 3E: The student is expected to share information in cooperative learning interactions
Reading 4E: The student is expected to read linguistically accommodated content area material with
a decreasing need for linguistic accommodations as more English is learned
Writing 5B: The student is expected to write using newly acquired basic vocabulary and content-
based grade-level vocabulary.

Language Objective (s):

C2H (Listening): Understand implicit ideas and information
C3E (Speaking): Share in cooperative groups
C4J (Reading): Show comprehension through inferential skills
C5B (Writing): Write using newly acquired vocabulary

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Vocabulary: Definition: Cognate (T or F):

Food chain A food chain shows the transfer of energy from Cadena de comida (F)
one organism to another.
Producer A green plant that uses sunlight to make its own El productor (T)
food.
Consumer An organism that eats another organism to gain Consumidor (T)
energy.
Herbivore Plant-eaters Herbívoro (T)
Carnivore Meat-eaters Carnívoro (T)
Organism A living thing Organismo (T)
Biome A large region of Earth with a certain climate Bioma (T)
and certain organisms
Misconceptions:
 Students may think arrows show who eats who, as opposed to the flow of energy.
 Students may think organisms higher in the food chain eat everything lower than them in the chain.
 Students may not realize plants need energy from the sun.
 Students may believe carnivores are big or ferocious or both while herbivores are small and timid.

Materials/Resources/Technology Needs:
Materials:
 Book: Hey Diddle Diddle: A Food Chain Tale by Pam Kapchinske
 Glue
 Pencils
 Placards for student modeling during Explain (Retrieved from
http://www.rcsnc.org/UserFiles/Servers/Server_4702937/File/lynne%20huskey/FoodChainGang.pdf
 Science journals
 Envelopes with pictures
 Food chain cards
 Whiteboard with projector
 Construction paper

Book: Hey Diddle Diddle: A Food Chain Tale by Pam Kapchinske

Technology: SMART Exchange (Food)

Retrieved from: http://exchange.smarttech.com/details.html?id=9ee4e054-d068-4791-8225-c9a94929bc7e

Safety:
No chemicals or otherwise toxic materials are being used in this lesson. Students should be wary and
respectful of each other and their personal space especially as they move around from table to table

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and be sure they do not hurt each other while rushing to complete the task. The usual safety
precautions associated with scissors should also be taken.
5E Instructional Procedures
What Teacher Does
Engage The teacher will begin the lesson by
reading students the book Hey Diddle
Diddle. She will direct students’
attention to the pictures and ask simple
recall questions. The teacher will also
ask questions relating to the lesson
objective (Do you only eat one thing?
Do all animals eat only one other
animal? Why do organisms need food?
How are animals and plants dependent
on each other? What might happen if
one animal in the chain became
extinct? )
Explore The teacher will demonstrate a simple
food chain linkage on the board. She
will start with the sun and have
students identify organisms through
which the flow of energy might
continue in the food chain.
Sun_-> Grass -> Cow -> Me
“In a minute, I will pass out a packet
with cards to each table. Each packet
has a food chain with animals from the
same biome. Does anyone have schema
on what that might mean? It means
they all live in the same environment.
One example of a biome is the desert.
What are some organisms you might
find in the desert?” The teacher will
present the five different biomes they
will be focusing on that day: desert,
forest, ocean, tundra and grasslands.
The teacher will provide directions for
the entire activity before having
students return to their desks. She will
engage students in a thumbs-up check
of understanding directions to ease
transitions during the activity. She will
What Student Does:
The student is actively listening while the
teacher reads the story and connecting the
rhymes to his or her knowledge about the
ecosystem.
The student begins wondering about the
questions the teacher poses about food
chains.
These questions are meant to propel student
thinking and the teacher will not record the
answers but will simply call on students to
pose answers and make mental note about
the students’ level of prior knowledge and
the amount of scaffolding that will be
appropriate.
The student is activating prior schema they
have about animals and how they interact
with each other; students have studied food
chains in earlier levels but the activation of
prior knowledge prepares students to
generate meaningful connections on their
own, later in the lesson.
The students will collaborate and use their
knowledge of predator-prey relationships to
organize the organisms in the food chain
format they agree upon.
The student should be discussing the chains
with their peers, and making connections
about different food chains being a part of
different ecosystems.
The student is practicing literacy and
teamwork skills; students are synergizing to
work within a given time frame and are
responding appropriately to teacher cues for
starting and stopping the activity.
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clarify that they are to be at a Voice

Level of no more than 1 and that there
should be only one speaker when
directions are being given.

The teacher will pass out a packet with

some picture cards to each table. Each
table will have a food chain associated
with a different biome and ecosystem.
The teacher will time students for one
minute in which time students will
arrange the pictures in the order they
believe is accurate. Before having them
start, the teacher will remind students
to pay attention to patterns they might
see in the food chains and try to
identify what biome their food chain is
a part of. Students will move from
table to table until they have the
opportunity to arrange food chains
from all five presented ecosystems.

The teacher will cue students with a

signal, possibly a hand signal or
ringing a bell and make sure that her
directions are clearly audible before
students transition to the next table

The teacher can ask questions while

monitoring: “What do you think is the
role of the fungus?” “Do you notice
something about the size of the
organisms?” “What other organisms
could belong to this biome?”

Explain The teacher will have students share
the food chain they created at their
home group. The teacher will elicit
student observations such as what they
noticed about the food chains, what
was similar about the first organism in
The teacher will be writing the food chains
on the board as students share them. The
student will participate in sharing their food
chain arrangement with the rest of the class
and justify their reasoning for that
arrangement.

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every chain, what patterns they noticed,

etc. The teacher will introduce new
vocabulary like producer, primary
consumer, etc. at appropriate moments
within this conversation. The teacher
will clear misconceptions such as that
arrows represent the flow of energy
rather than who is eaten by whom.
The teacher will have student
volunteers come to the front and model
part of the food chain from the book in
the Engage section.
The student will play an active role in
modeling the food chain for the class. The
remaining students will be an active
audience and determine which of the
vocabulary placards each organism in the
food chain should be labelled with.
In their group, the student will label their
created food chain with the new vocabulary
introduced such as producer, consumer,
herbivore, carnivore, etc.

Sun -> Leaf -> Caterpillar -> Lizard ->

Bobcat -> Fungus

The teacher will give directions for

students to sketch their food chain on
construction paper The teacher will
then have groups label their food chain
with the new terminology and remind
them to draw arrows to show the flow
of energy.

Elaborate The teacher will display a picture of an
oxpecker and giraffe and ask what they
might have to do with each other. She
will point out that they depend on each
other; the oxpecker eats ticks from the
giraffe and the giraffe gets to be clean!
The teacher will liken a change in the
food chain to a game of Jenga, where
pulling one block can topple the entire
tower.
At their tables, students will be told to
open an envelope with a picture of a
The student will analyze how the extinction
of one species can impact the resulting links
and disrupt energy transfer.
Students will actively participate in the
teacher-facilitated discussion and consider
possible changes within ecosystems.
The student will examine the effects of a
disruption in one level of the food chain on
the rest of the food chain and depict the
changes to the quantity of organisms on their
food chain. The key concept students should

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change to their environment and be forming here is that a change to one part
discuss in their groups what change is of the food chain affects the entire chain
depicted and how it might impact their which, in turn, affects the ecosystem.
food chain.

The teacher will have students share

the ideas they had about the
photograph they had seen in the
Explore section. The rest of the class
will be shown the photograph on the
projector and the teacher will
encourage student ideas about the
change. The teacher will facilitate a
discussion about the sources of
possible changes to environments,
whether they are man-made or natural,
etc.

The teacher will have students use

arrows to depict on their food chain
what would happen at each level
following a change at a certain level.
For example, the tundra group will be
told that global warming is killing off
the algae in their food chain.

Evaluate The teacher will provide clear
directions to students: (In your science
journal you will create your own food
chain; you should include a producer
and at least two consumers. Label the
producers and consumers on your food
chain.”)
The teacher will provide support to
students if they are having trouble with
any of the links. The students will have
a choice between sketching the pictures
or writing the names of organisms.
The student is working at the Synthesis level
of Bloom’s to create their own food chain.
The student is applying their knowledge of
new terminology to what they know about
the interdependency of plants and animals.
The student is using their knowledge of food
chains and energy flow to predict what will
happen at different levels of their food chain,
following the removal of all producers.

Underneath their food chain, the

teacher will direct students to use

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complete sentences to write in response

to the following prompt: A mysterious
disease has killed off all the producers
in the environment. How will this
affect your food chain? The teacher
will actively monitor students and ask
questions like: Why will there be less
primary consumers if your producer
dies?” and “What is another producer
that the primary consumers might start
gaining energy from if all the grass
started dying?”

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