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DISCUSS (1 of 2):
What do you think is wrong with the fish?
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DISCUSS (2 of 2):
What would you do to try to help the fish?
DISCUSS:
How can fish survive in a pond if waste doesn’t get filtered out of the water?
DISCUSS:
Can you think of anything that could help LOWER the amount of carbon dioxide in a pond?
1. DRAW: Sketch a model of the interactions in a pond ecosystem. To get started, write plants, decomposers, and pond animals on a piece of paper. (Don’t write them too close to each other, you’ll be adding things in between them). Then draw arrows and add labels to show all the things that connect them.
2. CHECK: Did you include waste, nutrients, carbon dioxide, and oxygen arrows in your model? If not, add arrows in for those too.
3. HERE’S WHAT WE DID: Here’s what our model ecosystem looked like, but there are many ways to draw this and yours might look different.
If you need a natural stopping point!
Teachers: If you are short on time, this is a good stopping point. You can play the Big Fish ecosystem game in a future session.
If you’ll be playing another day, have each pair of students clip their cards, their Fish-o-meter, their pointer and their worksheets together with a binder clip.
If you’re continuing right now, advance to the next slide.
Below are ideas for extending this topic beyond the Exploration & Activity you just completed.
- Lesson Assessment and Answer Key
- Resource: Set up a cold-water aquarium for your classroom
- Resource and Activity: Make a seaweed salad!
- Videos: Life in a drop of pond water, food webs in the Everglades, and the dirt on decomposers
- Readings: From “rock snot” to seabird poop
- Distance Learning Resource: Observe organisms that live in a pond
A fish tank can be a great source of learning and pleasure. If you have the opportunity to add one to your classroom, these videos will help guide you. They show how to prepare a simple, cold-water tank, suitable for keeping a community of goldfish. Instructions on maintaining the tank, as well as choosing and caring for both the fish and their environment, are included.
- How to prepare a cold-water fish tank (3:55)
- How to choose and care for goldfish (3:40)
- How to add new fish to your fish tank (3:10)
- How to clean and maintain your fish tank (3:33)
Fish eat algae…and people do, too. Give your students a chance to get to know edible algae.
- Did you know there were algae in your chocolate milk? This lesson, from the Smithsonian], lets students discover what common foods contain algae.
- For a more in-depth exploration of edible algae, check out this website, from the California Academy of Sciences, with everything from lesson plans to recipes for seaweed salads.
- For even more on different kinds of edible algae and how healthy they can be, check out this site.
- What’s in a drop of pond water? Watch this video (4:05) to see pond life under the microscope, and this one (2:31) for some pond-creature close-ups.
- Two videos show the amazing complexity of life in the Florida Everglades. “The Food Chain” (4:49) introduces the flow of energy within the environment; “The Food Web” (3:07) connects some of those chains—all with up-close views of life in the swamp.
- Decomposers are nature’s cleanup crews. Watch this video to see how they work. (3:18)
Readings from Newsela are free with registration. They can be adjusted for reading level. A writing prompt and quiz questions are available for each reading.
- Fish eat algae, but what happens when there’s too much of it? Read about one kind of problem algae that clogs river water with “rock snot.” (Grade 6)
- A look at the worldwide ecosystem and the many relationships it contains. (Grade 5)
What lives in a pond? Watch this video and discuss these questions.
- How many different animals can you see in the pond? Name the ones you know. Describe the ones you don’t.
- How many different plants do you see?
- Draw a picture of this pond and label any producers and consumers you include in the picture. You probably can’t see any decomposers, but can you label where they would be?
