Marcia L. Gerencser
Imagine if all the fish were killed in the uppermost part of the northern hemisphere because of a poison that infilltrated the habitat of the fish. What would happen to the bears and seals? They would eventually starve and could eventually be deemed as endangered. The food chain is another important part of our ecosystem and a chain that children can readily understand. The activity below demonstrates the manner in which our ecosystem functions and how animals are interdependent on each other.
Skills:
1. Thinking through questioning.
2. Retrieve previously learned knowledge.
3. Research skills.
4. Oral presentation.
Materials:
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1. One wire clothing hanger.
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2. About 6 pieces of various colored yarn, cut in 4-inch lengths for each student.
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3. About 7 pieces of oak tag for each student cut in 4x5 in. rectangles.
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4. Crayons, markers, colored pencils.
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5. A hole puncher.
Procedure:
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1. Have children punch a hole at the top and bottom of each rectangle on the 5 inch side.
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2. Choose an animal and draw it on one of the pieces of oak tag.
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3. Ask yourself, “What does my animal EAT?” and draw it on another piece of oak tag.
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4. Continue this same line of thinking through questioning until you cannot go any further.
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5. Take the very last card that you drew and attach a piece of yarn through the top hole, knot it and then attach it to the wire hanger to begin your mobile.
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6. Looking at the first picture that you attached to the wire hanger, ask yourself, “Who needs that to eat?” Attach to the first card.
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7. Continue until all cards are attached to each other.
Evaluation:
Choose a mobile and ask what would happen if the animal in the middle of the chain of cards was missing. What would be some reasons why this animal is missing? (Acceptable responses would be - flood, fire, pollution, other natural disasters, poisons, hunters, building of homes, malls, roads and destruction of forests for farmland.) Let children discuss what happens to the other animals in the food chain. (Acceptable responses - those closest to the hanger would increase in number, those below the animal would starve.) Ask children to think about what would happen if the water supply had a chemical in it that did not belong there and one animal drank the water. Ask them to think about how this poison could travel from one animal to another. A question for discussion - “Could we take in a poison and not know it?”
