ALEX Resources

   View Standards     Standard(s): [SC2015] (5) 10 :

10 ) Construct and interpret models (e.g., diagrams, flow charts) to explain that energy in animals' food is used for body repair, growth, motion, and maintenance of body warmth and was once energy from the sun.

Students will discover how plants, animals, and fungi are all interconnected in a giant web.  They will construct a model of a food chain to explain that energy in animals' food is used to sustain life.  They will also acknowledge that all food chains start with energy from the sun.

This lesson results from the ALEX Resource Gap Project.

   View Standards     Standard(s): [ELA2015] (5) 10 :

10 ) Quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text. [RI.5.1]

[SC2015] (5) 10 :

10 ) Construct and interpret models (e.g., diagrams, flow charts) to explain that energy in animals' food is used for body repair, growth, motion, and maintenance of body warmth and was once energy from the sun.

Students know that humans and other animals must eat food to have the energy to grow, maintain body temperature, heal, and move, but do they realize that all the energy in food was once energy from the sun? In this lesson, students will participate in a simulation regarding the transfer of energy from the sun to plants, the conversion of solar energy into chemical energy during photosynthesis, and the transfer of energy between organisms when one organism eats another.  Then they will use websites, close reading of nonfiction passages, and vocabulary-building activities to prepare them to construct their own models of the transfer of energy in a food chain to show that energy in animals' food was once energy from the sun.  

   View Standards     Standard(s): [SC2015] (5) 10 :

10 ) Construct and interpret models (e.g., diagrams, flow charts) to explain that energy in animals' food is used for body repair, growth, motion, and maintenance of body warmth and was once energy from the sun.

[SC2015] (5) 11 :

11 ) Create a model to illustrate the transfer of matter among producers; consumers, including scavengers and decomposers; and the environment.

This game challenges players to build a food web based on Antarctic food chains. Players must position the names of producers and consumers in the correct places in a diagram. The completed diagram demonstrates how energy flows through an Antarctic ecosystem and the relationships between predators and prey. This interactive also provides background knowledge and reference materials and allows players to check their answers for accuracy and try again.

This learning activity was created as a result of the Girls Engaged in Math and Science University, GEMS-U Project.

   View Standards     Standard(s): [SC2015] (4) 2 :

2 ) Plan and carry out investigations that explain transference of energy from place to place by sound, light, heat, and electric currents.

a. Provide evidence that heat can be produced in many ways (e.g., rubbing hands together, burning leaves) and can move from one object to another by conduction.

b. Demonstrate that different objects can absorb, reflect, and/or conduct energy.

c. Demonstrate that electric circuits require a complete loop through which an electric current can pass.

[SC2015] (5) 10 :

10 ) Construct and interpret models (e.g., diagrams, flow charts) to explain that energy in animals' food is used for body repair, growth, motion, and maintenance of body warmth and was once energy from the sun.

In this lesson, students will perform simple experiments that will help them explore the unseen energy produced by the sun. During the course of this lesson, students will be exposed to these concepts: the sun produces both visible and invisible forms of energy, the light we see is visible energy produced from the sun reflected off surfaces, ultraviolet energy emitted from the sun can produce skin burns and cancer, and there are ways of blocking ultraviolet radiation.