Food Chain Lesson Plan
Food Chain Lesson Plan
Planning Pre-Assessment:
●short quiz with true/false questions on the basic information; question about which
ecosystem they are personally interested in
●groups for lesson will be made based off of the results of this pre-assessment
●will help provide knowledge on which ecosystems students are interested in so I can
tailor some source options to these preferences
Body: Day 1. After the hook activity, students will be broken into groups based off of readiness
levels determined by their pre-assessment scores. Groups should be no larger than 4 students to
ensure that every child is being involved in the project. Each group will receive different primary
or secondary sources (roughly according to reading ability level) about food chains in differing
ecosystems (skill building that will later become standards they need to achieve according to
High School Living Science Common Core). Each group will pick one of the sources to use for
information as they build a model food chain of out of craft supplies. The food chain should be a
visual representation of the food chain described in the source they picked as a group. Groups
will plan their food chain and get it approved before moving on to the constructing stage. Groups
will then begin creating their food chain. Request that the essays be worked on and close to
finished for homework.
Day 2. Allow groups to finish building their model food chains. Once the chain is built, the
individuals at each group will separately work on their short essay describing the food chain,
meeting the standards in the KUD. Groups who are finished the building stage should be
encouraged to ask group members for help during the writing process if they were struggling
with anything the previous night. If the high level groups are finishing far ahead of schedule,
encourage them to think about or add more connections to their created food chains and discuss
with their group members. This will help them understand the real world complexity of
ecosystem feeding that other groups may not be ready to grasp during this exercise. They may
also begin to think about the impact humans have on the food chain they created.
Closure: have groups present their created food chains and all of the information they have
gathered (as many groups as time permits).
Assessment / Culminating Performance:
Description: The student’s final project will become the final assessment. They will
receive a single grade combining the food chain visual with the short essay. This grade
will be based off of a rubric. (The closure presentation will not receive a grade or be
averaged into any individual’s final grades.)