FOOD CHAIN

Science can become quite boring with the same old lecturing and questioning.  I loooove Scholastic resources as supplementation for lesson plans.   I enjoy using the Magic School Bus resources for  explaining how food chain works using videos, the white board and pop corn! You may think that  the Magic School Bus is rather outdated. In essence, it delivers the objective and students get engaged so much, that by my own experience, some of them end up checking out  their books and using other resources such as games, science facts,quizzes and experiments.

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Benchmark Description:

Trace the flow of energy from the Sun as it is transferred along the food chain through the producers to the consumers. Question: What is your favorite kind of insect? Ms. Frizzle: Bees are my favorite, even though there are 20,000 different species of bees. They are very productive, they produce delicious honey for humans. We also wouldn't have vegetables or flowers without bees pollinating. Popcorn Chain Going Hands-On The Magic School Bus kids really get into the food chain: They're swallowed by a tuna fish. With this activity, your kids get to eat while they act as links in the food chain. The popcorn bags stand for food energy that is passed along the links in a food chain from the sun, to plants, to plant-eaters, to meat-eaters. What You Need Copies of POPCORN CHAIN page Scissors Markers Yarn Tape 12 baggies of popcorn Talk About It Ask children: What is a food chain? What are some examples of plants and animals that are links in a food chain? What might happen in a food chain if one link is harmed by pollution? What To Do Choose roles for children: 1 sun, 12 plants, 6 plant-eaters, and 3 meat-eaters. Kids color and cut out their symbols and tape them to yarn to make necklaces. Have children spread out around the room, or go outside if possible. The sun holds all 12 bags of popcorn. She gives one bag to each plant. The plants eat half of the popcorn to have energy for growing and living. Each plant-eater takes a bag from two plants and eats half of the remaining popcorn. Each meat-eater takes a bag from two plant-eaters and eats the rest of the popcorn.  Next Stop Kids can trace a food chain from a favorite food. They might try pizza, a jelly bean, or tuna fish. One can use these resources as part of science centers and reinforcement while  students play and test!