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Ecosystems, Food Webs, and Owl Pellets


We have had so much fun in Science the last few weeks! My kiddos have loved learning about ecosystems and food webs. I wanted to give my kids a chance to put together food webs before creating their own, so I made this Interactive Ecosystems Unit:

Interactive ecosystems with Ideas by Jivey

Since several of my students don’t have a lot of background information about what animals eat (other than the ones that live in our ecosystem), I gave them the passages from the unit that give information about all of the ecosystems and the animals that live in them. I allowed my students to work on these in partner sets and groups, which really made them use the evidence from the passages to prove their thinking with each other. Their conversations were really awesome!

Interactive ecosystems with Ideas by Jivey
The last activity in the unit allows them to figure out how to place the organisms so that they can create a food web. 
Interactive ecosystems with Ideas by Jivey
Instead of printing the freshwater organisms page full size and giving them the large-sized construction paper, I printed two sets on one page and didn’t give them the arrows. It fit perfectly on a sheet of copy paper, and the students drew in their own arrows instead of trying to make them fit in between the animals. 
Interactive ecosystems with Ideas by Jivey

To wrap up our unit, I had the students create their own food webs!

Interactive ecosystems with Ideas by Jivey
Disecting owl pellets with Ideas by Jivey

And then, of course, we had to get our hands a little dirty! We dissected owl pellets!

My kids love doing this every year, and even the ones who act like they think it’s so gross and don’t want to touch it end up being the most excited! :o)