Texarkana Independent School District

Focus Plan

GRADING PERIOD: / Chemistry - 1st 6 weeks, Biology - 4th 6 weeks, IPC - 2nd 6 weeks / PLAN CODE:
WRITER: / L. Petty / COURSE/SUBJECT: / Science 11th grade
GRADE(S): / 11 / TIME ALLOTTED FOR INSTRUCTION: / 1½-2 hours

TITLE: / You Can’t Catch Me
LESSON TOPIC: / Food chain relationships, biomagnification and how food chains can be affected by environmental changes.
TAKS OBJECTIVE: / Objective 3
The student will demonstrate an understanding of the interdependence of organisms and the environment.
FOCUS TEKS AND STUDENT EXPECTATION: / 11.9 The student knows metabolic processes and energy transfers that occur in
living organisms. The student is expected to:
(D) analyze the flow of matter and energy through different trophic
levels and between organisms and the physical environment.
11.12 The student knows that interdependence and interactions occur within an
ecosystem. The student is expected to:
(E) investigate and explain the interactions in an ecosystem including
food chains, food webs and food pyramids.
SUPPORTING TEKS AND STUDENT EXPECTATIONS: / 11.10 The student knows that interdependence and interactions occur within an
ecosystem. The student is expected to:
(B) interpret interactions among organisms exhibiting predation,
parasitism, commensalism and mutualism

Concepts / Enduring Understandings/Generalizations/Principles
The student will understand that
Interdependent / All organisms on Earth depend on each other for survival.
Food webs / A tool used to show this interdependence is a food web diagram.
Food chains / A food web shows how all of the different food chains are intertwined.
Individuality / Each organism in a food chain has its own specific job or niche.
Togetherness / If one organism in a food chain or web is affected by something, all of them are affected.
New species / If a new species is introduced into an area, all organisms are impacted.
Biomagnification / If chemicals are introduced into an area, it may be found in all organisms and concentrate in the top consumers.

I. SEQUENCE OF ACTIVITIES (INSTRUCTIONAL STRATEGIES)

A. Focus/connections/anticipatory set

When students enter the classroom, put a sample food chain on the overhead. Explain the roll of producers,

herbivores, carnivores and omnivores.

B. Instructional activities

(demonstrations, lectures, examples, hands-on experiences, role play, active learning experience, art, music, modeling, discussion, reading, listening, viewing, etc.)

1. Lecture

Use Transparency master – You Can’t Catch Me to go over vocabulary.

C. Guided activity or strategy

Materials needed: Fruit Loops

Cheerios (whole grain)

Concentrated lemon juice

Procedure: Lightly spray the Cheerios with lemon juice and lightly spray the fruit loops with water. Allow all

cereal to dry.

On the day of the activity, spread 120-150 pieces of cereal (about equal amounts of Fruit Loops and Cheerios) on a clean tray. Record the number of each different colored “prey” at the beginning of the activity.

Have each student come to the tray and, using 3 fingers, quickly get as many pieces of cereal as they can carry.

After students have returned to their seats, have them eat the cereal (caution them not to reveal any aspect of what they experience).

Record colors and numbers of different “prey” remaining.

Do this several times, recording numbers each time.

Get students to understand that the Cheerios have been treated with something that makes them taste nasty while the Fruit Loops have not. (This should be demonstrated by the data – the Fruit Loops should start disappearing quicker once students determine that the Cheerios taste sour.)

Compare this to the Monarch and Viceroy butterflies. The Monarch tastes nasty and the Viceroy (which is actually tasty) is often avoided because of its mimicry with the Monarch.

D. Accommodations/modifications

Students requiring accommodations should be paired with the peer tutor they will be working with for the lab.

E. Enrichment

Students requiring enrichment should be assigned as peer tutors.

II. STUDENT PERFORMANCE

A. Description

Complete Lab – You Can’t Catch Me.

B. Accommodations/modifications

Students requiring accommodations should be assigned a peer tutor.

C. Enrichment

Students requiring enrichment should serve as a peer tutor.

III. ASSESSMENT OF ACTIVITIES

A. Description

Grade Lab Worksheet – You Can’t Catch Me.

B. Rubrics/grading criteria

Grade the hypothesis and the last question about whether the hypothesis was supported or not as 5 points each. Grade each question at 3 points each. Grade each set of data at 5 points each. If time is not available to run 6 sets of values, the points for each section may be increased. The graph should be graded following classroom grading procedure.

C. Accommodations/modifications

Students needing accommodations may need help setting up their graphs but this occurs during the procedure so their peer tutors may be able to help with this. Many of the questions require students to look for trends that are not extremely obvious so students requiring accommodations may work on questions with their peer tutors or be given some leniency in grading on these questions.

D. Enrichment

Students requiring enrichment should serve as peer tutors and may be given the assignment to complete all

trial activities.

E. Sample discussion questions

1. What happened to the number of fish caught per day for each successive day? They should have

decreased.

2. What effect would the lake becoming a commercial fishing area cause? Students might say that there

would be more fish because the lake would be stocked for the fishermen. They might also say there would

be less fish since the fishermen would act as a competitor.

3. What effect would losing a mate have on an eagle? If there were offspring, the eagle left would have to

work harder for the babies to survive, which may endanger the adult as well.

4. Do we see anything similar to this in our society? Single parents have to work harder to raise their

children with one income and less time to devote to the offspring. Also, competition for jobs makes it

harder to get work.

5. Explain that the wolf is a specialist, it only eats freshly killed prey and is very picky about what it eats. The

coyote, on the other hand, is a generalist that eats just about any type of food. What advantages might there

be in this situation, and which organism would have the advantage? If the types of food the wolf ate

decreased, the wolf population, like the eagles, would decrease. For the coyote, there would be many other

food sources and it would just switch to another source.

IV. TAKS Preparation

A. Transition to TAKS context

Before lab paper is turned in, the teacher might want to go over question 14 with the students. This is like an actual TAKS questions but it goes back two trophic levels and many students will miss it. They are usually going to say 10% because this is the number available for each organism.

Put a simple food web on the board:

Hawks

Weasels Raccoons

Mice

Grass/shrubs

Either give the following questions as a quiz over the activity or go over it together:

1. Identify an herbivore – mice

2. Identify a carnivore – weasels or hawks

3. Identify an omnivore – raccoons

4. Identify a producer – grass/shrubs

5. Identify a primary consumer – mice or raccoons

6. Identify an organism that functions as a secondary consumer – weasels, hawks or raccoons

7. List one food chain where a hawk functions as a secondary consumer – grassàmiceàhawks or

Grassàraccoonsàhawks

8. List one food chain where a hawk functions as a tertiary consumer – grass/shrubsàmiceàweasels (or raccoons)àhawks

9. What would happen to weasels if mice die out? They would die since mice are shown as their only food source.

10. What would happen to weasels if raccoons die out? The population could possibly increase since a competitor is removed and more mice would be available.

B. Sample TAKS questions

1. Which answer shows the proper way to draw a food chain?

(a) plantsà insects àbirds

(b) plants àinsects ßbirds

Use the following food web for your next 2 questions.

Raccoons

Plants insects

hawks robin

2. In this food web, robins are ___.

(a) producers

(b) primary consumers

3. If all of the robins would die, _____.

(a) the insect population might increase

(b) the raccoon population might increase since they would have more insects

(d) all of the above might happen

4. Which type of organism would you expect to find the most of in a community?

(a) producers

(b) primary consumers

5. If the number of prey increase, what happens to the number of predators?

(a) it increases

(b) it decreases

The following questions were taken off 2003 and 2004 released items (there were actually 11 questions over these objectives between these two released tests.

In this food chain, spiders are ____.

(a) producers

(b) primary consumers

(d) secondary consumers

7. In Central America there is a tree called bullhorn acacia that provides both food and shelter to a

certain species of ant. The ants live within the tree without causing it harm. In fact, the ants protect

the tree by vigorously attacking and stinging other animals that try to eat it. This relationship is an

example of _____.

(a) predation

(b) parasitism

(d) commensalism

1000 kcal

consumed

30 kcal consumed

Approximately how much of the energy available in the tissues of the producers is eventually

incorporated into the tissues of a secondary consumer?

V. Key Vocabulary

abiotic habitat

biotic parasitism

carrying capacity population

competition predation

ecosystem

VI. Resources

A. Textbook – none needed

B. Supplementary materials

Lab Instructions – You Can’t Catch Me

Lab Worksheet – You Can’t Catch Me

Instructor’s copy – You Can’t Catch Me

C. Technology

The mimicry activity was taken from http://www.accessexcellence.org/AE/AEPC/WWC/1995/mimicry.html.

VII. Follow up activities

(reteaching, cross-curricular support, technology activities, next lesson in sequence, etc.)

A. Reteach

Go over graded activity with students.

B. Next lesson in sequence

Continue interaction of organisms with their environment.

VIII. Teacher Notes

Before lab:

1. Pretreat the cereal in the guided strategy so that it can dry before the activity.

2. Make the transparency master of the vocabulary.

3. Run off a class set of Lab Instructions.

4. Run off enough Lab Worksheets for each student to have one.

5. Color the rice red so that it can dry.

6. If you need to save some time on this activity, precut the grid paper and the cardboard squares that are used to

represent the eagles.

During lab:

7. Make sure students are not influencing where the “fish” are and how they drop the “eagles”.

This activity is taken from: Biology The Dynamics of Life Laboratory Manual

Glencoe Division

Macmillan/McGraw-Hill

936 Eastwind Drive

Westerville, OH 43081

ISBN 0-02-826666-8