Overview:

This activity is going to be used to learn about the environments that insects live in. This lesson is for a third grade class and should last about an hour.

Purpose:

The students will be able to identify and define an Ecosystem and the basic needs of all animals.

Science: 8a Describe and observe habitats within ecosystems.

Materials:

Pickle Jar
Pond or Stream water
Magnifying Glass (to observe the creatures in the jar)

Getting Ready:

You should know about the basic needs of all animals:
Food, shelter, and oxygen

Motivate:

At the beginning of the lesson, ask the students what they need to survive in this world. Write these on the board. Narrow the answers down until you get food, shelter, and oxygen. Ask the students if only humans need these basic things for survival. You should explain that all animals need these things for survival. Take the students on a field trip to a nearby pond or stream.

Activity:

Take the student to a pond or stream and have them look in the water. What kind of animals do they see? Take a sample of the pond or stream water, some of the bottom of the pond or stream, and a small plant back to the classroom in a pickle jar or other large jar.

Have the students view the creatures in the jar. Have them record what they find. Are there any insects in the jar? Have them keep track of the number of each creature in the jar. Ask the students what kind of information they have found out. Ask probing questions to get the students to realize that there are looking at an ecosystem. Have the students predict what will supply the creatures three basic needs. Have the students write this in a paragraph form.

Safety Tips:

Have the students use safe behavior near and around the pond or stream.

Concept Discovery:

Explain that the pickle jar is an ecosystem that will supply the organisms that now live there with food, shelter, and oxygen. Have the students observe the organisms that are in the jar to keep an ongoing record of the creatures and their population.

Going Further:

Let the students keep track of the populations in their jar and observe their behavior. Let the jar sit on a shelf and watch what happens over an extended period of time.

Closure:

Have the students share their predictions of how the organisms basic needs are met.

Assessment:

Use the students' paragraphs to assess what the students have learned by observing the pickle jar.

Connections:

Connections can be made to Mathematics by population studies, English has writing about the students' predictions. This lesson could easily be modified for almost all age groups because the children will become interested in keeping up with the pickle jar.

Adapted from AIMS, September 1995

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