Living Earth · Week 2 · Ecosystems: Interactions and Energy
Who Eats Whom in the Desert
Students model energy flow through a desert food web and reflect on who depends on them and whom they depend on.
- Students will
- Students model how energy moves from producers to consumers in a desert food web and explain why top predators are few.
- SEL skill
- Describe how another living thing or person depends on others, from their point of view
- What it looks like
- Students practice perspective-taking by describing a food web from the point of view of other organisms.
- Content focus
- Energy flow in a desert food web
- Format
- Partner exchange
Social awareness
Social awareness means understanding the perspectives of other people and empathizing with them, including people from different backgrounds. More social awareness activities
What you get
A teacher guide with what to say, step by step, plus student pages and a supports page for students with diverse learning needs, including those with IEPs. Print or Project it, or assign it in Google Forms and Google Docs for Google Classroom. Your first 10 activities are free.
Standards
- HS-LS2-4: High School Life Science performance expectation
- Science and engineering practice: SEP2 Developing and using models
- Crosscutting concept: CCC5 Energy and matter
- CA Environmental Principles and Concepts: Principle I: People depend on natural systems
- Literacy in science: RST.9-10.7 Translate between quantitative or technical information in words, tables, graphs, and equations.
- Traditional course: Biology
Fits these textbook chapters
Textbook names are used only to help you find activities that fit what you teach. RoseThread Connect is not affiliated with these publishers.
More social awareness activities for Living Earth
- Partners in the Desert Social awarenessExplaining the partnership between the yucca and the yucca moth and noticing the quiet partnerships that hold a classroom together.
- Cycling Carbon Social awarenessModeling the carbon cycle through photosynthesis and respiration and tracing how one person's choices cycle through a community.
- Earth Shapes Life Social awarenessArguing how Earth's surface and life changed together over time and recognizing how surroundings shape people's stories.
- Traits and Family Stories Social awarenessAsking questions about chromosomes and inherited traits while using respectful norms for discussing family differences.
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RoseThread Connect activities are drafted with the help of AI and shaped by educators. Students never have to share anything personal. Our five SEL skills are informed by CASEL's SEL Framework; RoseThread Learning is not affiliated with or endorsed by CASEL.