Lesson Summary
Students will be able to learn Abiotic, LAWS, Biotic, PCD, and FBI through an E1T1 (does not include cultural). By the end of the E1T1, they should have most of page 2 in their journals filled out and have some understanding of the parts of the ecosystem and able to categorize based on those lables.
Age group: 4th-6th
Venue/s: anywhere (you may prefer a loop with a water source)
Materials: E1T1 cards (download below)
Time:
Set up: none (can build off of previous day’s ecosystem mind map)
Assessment:
As each student trickles in from the each one teach one, ask him/her what he/she learned from someone else during the activity. Also, look at each student’s journal to see if they all wrote the words and meanings correctly in their journals.
Intro:
“Today, you are going to become a professor about part of the ecosystem here. This will help you understand the parts of the ecosystem and how they are all connected. To help you remember, you will be able to write the information down in your journals on page 2.”
The core lesson: (Confirmation Inquiry)
Draw either on the ground or on your chalkboard a path to represent the trail (or act this out with the students). Explain that you will go up the trail and, after two minutes, the first student (S1) will leave to meet you. When the student finds you, you will tell them what they are professor of and you will give them a card to help them remember their part. You will leave them stationed there while you go to the next spot. The second student (S2) will leave, after two minutes, and meet the first student. S1 will teach S2 his part of the ecosystem. S2 will then go to the teacher to learn their part and be stationed. S3 will leave, after two minutes, to learn from S1, S2, and then the teacher. Everyone stays in their position until the chaperone comes to their spot. The chaperone will learn from S1, then stand in S1’s position for two minutes while S1 goes through each student’s station. Then the chaperone will go to S2, learn from S2, and then stand in S2’s position for two minutes while S2 goes to each station. This will continue until every student has gone through everyone’s station and the chaperone will be the last to arrive with the group.
Explain that everyone will teach and everyone will learn all the parts of the ecosystem. When walking, no one should be walking with someone else. If they are too close to the person in front of them, stop and wait quietly.
Discussion Questions to enhance learning:
What is something new you learned?
How might the abiotic things change if you went to another ecosystem?
How might the biotic things change if you went to another ecosystem?
How do these ecosystems provide food, water, and shelter for the animals and people who live in
them?
What would happen if…the sun stopped shining/all the water dried up/decomposers all died?
How do the living organisms adapt to this ecosystem?
How are you a part of an ecosystem? (This can lead into the next part of the lesson: Cultural)
Conclusion:
Once the activity is over, you can have each student revisit his/her mind map in their journal (or the group mind map on butcher paper). Everyone can add in something they have learned (like the label to a category, or something they left off the ecosystem before). During the debrief, discuss how the students can help take care of the ecosystem here and at their home and/or school.
Interwiki: pdfE1T1_AsBs.pdfE1T1 biotic & abotic (ABC’s) cards++
Background information:
• Abiotic Factors: the L.A.W.S. of nature (Light, Air, Water, And Soil)
• Biotic Factors: Producers, Consumers, Decomposers and Scavengers
References:
Adapting the Ethnobotany Each one Teach one lesson along with the Nature’s ABC lesson.
School Partnerships Lessons:
Could do this lesson at the partner school to prepare students for the E1T1 style as well as familiarize them with these terms and concepts.
Created by Jenni Hensley on 3 November 2012