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Students share one new thing they learned about ecosystems and one question they still have.

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Throughout the lesson, students will complete quick checks for understanding using digital exit tickets on Padlet.

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By the end of this lesson, students will be able to:
- Identify and describe different types of ecosystems
- Explain how organisms interact within ecosystems
- Analyze the flow of energy in various ecosystems

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- How do different parts of an ecosystem depend on each other?
- What happens when one part of an ecosystem changes?
- How does energy flow through an ecosystem?

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Students will watch a video about different types of ecosystems and their characteristics. Take notes on the various interactions observed.

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The Nature of Nature | National Geographic

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Direct Instruction: Food Web Construction

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Direct Instruction: Food Web Construction

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Teacher demonstrates how to create a food web using local ecosystem examples. Students will use Padlet to collaboratively build their own food web with pictures and arrows showing energy flow.

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Interactive Activity: Ecosystem Role Play

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Interactive Activity: Ecosystem Role Play

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Students are assigned roles as different organisms in an ecosystem. They must interact with each other based on their roles (predator, prey, decomposer, etc.).

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In groups, students will research a specific ecosystem using provided websites and create a digital presentation showing the interactions between organisms.

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Learn about the different natural environments of plants and animals.

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Advanced students will analyze how natural or human-made changes affect ecosystem balance.

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How Disruptions Affect Animal Populations | PBS LearningMedia

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Students explore the effects that ecosystem disruptions can have on animal populations. In this interactive lesson, scaffolded to support English Learners and struggling readers, students learn about the disruptions that have driven three species—the Madagascar fish eagle, the Iberian lynx, and the rowi kiwi—to the brink of extinction. They also discover the impacts that a shift in the population of one animal can have on others in an ecosystem. As a final assignment, students use evidence they’ve gathered from media, text, and other lesson elements and produce an essay or visual model.

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Simplified matching activity connecting organisms with their roles in the ecosystem.

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Students will present their ecosystem research findings to the class. Assessment rubric focuses on understanding of interactions and energy flow.

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Students create a brief summary of what they learned about ecosystem interactions using text or drawings.

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Students will observe and document interactions in their local environment (backyard, park, etc.) for 15 minutes.

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Students will complete an interactive ecosystem simulation to reinforce concepts learned in class.

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In this series of games, your students will learn about nature's ecosystems and how their inhabitants coexist. The Interactions in Ecosystems learning objective - based on NGSS and state standards - delivers improved student engagement and academic performance in your classroom, as demonstrated by research.

Scroll down for a preview of this learning objective's games and the concepts they drive home.

Concepts Covered

The combination of living things and the environment they live in is called an ecosystem. Ecosystems are affected by biotic and abiotic factors.

Abiotic factors are all of the non-living things in an ecosystem. These include things like climate, temperature, what nutrients are available, how much sunlight is available, pH levels, and much more.

Changes in abiotic factors can have strong impacts on an ecosystem. They can come from natural causes, like earthquakes, volcanoes, and floods. They can also be human-driven, like climate change, pollution, and deforestation.

Biotic factors are all of the organisms in an ecosystem. They compete for food, water, shelter, living space, and other resources in their environment. They are also interdependent, which means any change in the population of one species affects the other species.

For example, if a disease or environmental change causes the population of small prey animals to decrease, the small predators that eat them will experience a food shortage. If those small predators start to die out, it will affect the larger predators that eat them.

On the other hand, if there is an increase in plant-eating animals, that can cut down the population of plants. Plants turn sunlight into usable energy for the whole ecosystem, so this can greatly disrupt the entire environment's food supply. If the plant population depletes too much, the herbivores cannot survive, and in turn, the carnivores that need to eat them die too.

A preview of each game in the learning objective is found below.

You can access all of the games on Legends of Learning for free, forever, with a teacher account. A free teacher account also allows you to create playlists of games and assignments for students and track class progress. Sign up for free today!

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Interactions in Ecosystems Science Games | Legends of Learning

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Curriculum games for interactions in ecosystems, based on NGSS & state standards. Learn how nature's inhabitants coexist.

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Create a model of a food web using materials found at home, take a photo, and share it on the class Padlet board.

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Students complete an online quiz about ecosystem interactions and relationships.

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Ecosystem interactions KG - University Quiz | Quizizz

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Ecosystem interactions quiz for KG students. Find other quizzes for Other Sciences and more on Quizizz for free!