Virtual Field Trip Lesson Plans

Lesson Plan #1:  Ecosystems: Abiotic/Biotic

Basic Lesson Description and Procedure:

1. Students watch the video at the SMNHC
2. Students write down the word “Ecosystem”
3. Students learn about different kinds of systems – digestive, solar, computers - that there are parts to all kinds of systems – and human beings exists within systems – every system has multiple parts
4. Students draw a T-chart broken into two parts (see attached worksheet)
5. Students take a moment to look outside a window and look for natural things within the natural ecosystem (not human-made things)
6. Students follow instructor and write down a few living (biotic) and non-living (abiotic) things grouped in categories (e.g., pine trees, sandstone-rocks, grass) and learn the meaning of the prefix “bio” (life, living things, etc.) and “a” (not, non-).  Students also learn that dead things came from living things and are different than non-living (never alive) things.
7. Students complete an observation activity outside, with grown-ups permission, or if not possible to go outside, students look out a window and/or their kitchen, to add abiotic and biotic things to their t-chart.

Observation Activity:

With permission from a grown-up, go outside, look out a window, or look in your kitchen-home-apartment to find at least 10 more examples (in total) of abiotic and biotic things.

Lesson Conclusion/Potential Practice at Home:

Students keep their t-charts for the next segment on ecosystems from the SMNHC to help them in the next lesson.

Accommodations-Modifications:

Just about any grade level can do this lesson and activity

Abiotic & Biotic Parts of Ecosystems: Outdoor Activity

Directions: 

1. Watch the Abiotic-Biotic lesson
2. Get a grown-up’s permission to do this 10-15 minute activity.
3. Go outside your home-apartment if safe, or look outside a window and in your kitchen.
4. Find at least 10 more examples of natural abiotic and biotic things to add to your t-chart.
5. You can draw pictures and write words.
6. Remember to look for things that are naturally-occurring and not human-made things.

Lesson Plan #2: Producers, Consumers, Decomposers

Basic Lesson Description and Procedure

1. Students will review the definitions of abiotic and biotic things.
2. Students draw a four-square chart and will label the chart during the video.
3. Under the abiotic parts, students will learn the acronym “SAWS” that represent Soil, Air, Water, Sunlight.
4. Students will understand that all energy in the ecosystem begins with energy from the sun in the form of sunlight.
5. Students will connect the four ecosystem components with wavy energy arrows to demonstrate the flow of energy within and among the ecosystem parts.
6. Students will learn about producers (plants that make their own food or energy with the sunlight).
7. Students will learn about consumers (animals that eat food to get energy) and review different kinds of consumers (herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores).
8. Students will learn about decomposers (living things that break down and get their energy from dead things).
9. Students review each of these four main parts (abiotic, producers, consumers, and decomposers) to understand where energy on planet earth comes from.
10. Students will complete an observation activity outside, with grown-up permission, or if not possible to go outside, students look out a window and/or their kitchen, to add observations of abiotic, producers, consumers, and decomposers (all 3 are biotic things) to their four-square chart.

Observation activity:

With permission of a grown-up, go outside, look out a window, or look in your kitchen-home-apartment to find at least 15-20 more examples (in total) of things that fit in the four categories.

Lesson Conclusion/Potential Practice at Home:

Students keep their 4-square charts for the next segment on ecosystems from the SMNHC to help them in the next lessons.

Accommodations-Modifications:

Just about any grade level can do this lesson and activity

Essential Parts of Ecosystems

Abiotic Factors, Producers, Consumers & Decomposers

Outdoor-Follow-up Activity

Directions: 

1. Watch the Essential Parts of Ecosystems (Abiotic Factors, Producers, Consumers & Decomposers) videolesson
2. Get a grown-up’s permission to do this 15-20 minute activity.
3. Go outside your home-apartment if safe, or look out a window and in your kitchen.
4. Find at least 15-20 more examples of natural abiotic and biotic things to add to your 4-square chart below.
5. You can draw pictures and write words of things that you observe.
6. Remember to look for things that are naturally-occurring and not human-made things that are additional examples of abiotic things, producers (plants), consumers (animals), and decomposers (things that break down dead things).

Consumer Evidence: Scat Lesson

Basic Lesson Description and Procedure

1. Students will watch the video from the SMNHC.
2. Students will make observations of different kinds of scat and specifically explore different samples of bear scat while learning about different mast (food) sources of black bear.
3. Students will look carefully at the bear scat and discover that bears eat food that is in season and available for them to eat (like bear corn, orchard fruit, insects, juniper berries, cactus fruit, piñons, acorns, grasses, etc.).
4. Students will learn about and observe scat from different kinds of consumers (herbivores, omnivores, carnivores) and recognize scat contents from several consumers that live in the Sandia Mountains (including pack rats, rabbits, deer, foxes, coyotes, bears, bobcats, turkey, and raccoon).
5. Students will gather supplies needed to make scat samples (dirt, water, oatmeal, modeling clay, plastic containers, shovel, spoon, etc.)
6. Students will learn how to make different kinds of scat using these materials and then make their own scat with an adult’s permission and/or supervision.

Scat-Making Activity

With permission of a grown-up, students will make different kinds of scat using clay, dirt/water, mud, oatmeal, whatever they can find.  Students can also draw and label scat if these materials are too difficult to find.

Lesson Conclusion/Potential Practice at Home

Students can let their scat dry and share their scat models with family members and others living with them if they choose.

Accommodations-Modifications

Just about any grade level can do this lesson and activity

Consumer Evidence: Skulls Lesson

Basic Lesson Description and Procedure:

1. Students will watch the video from the SMNHC.
2. Students will make observations of different kinds of consumer skulls. They will specifically observe skulls from an herbivore, an omnivore, and a carnivore.
3. Students will also learn about other teeth adaptations like the sheering scissor-like teeth in carnivores and omnivores and the structure and function of incisors.
4. During these observations in the video, students will pay particular attention to the structure, function, and adaptations of the consumer’s teeth.
5. Students will have the opportunity, during the video, to think about and identify different kinds of animals native to the Sandias and Rio Grande Bosque.
6. Students will then participate in two activities: drawing skulls (teeth) and writing a creative consumer survival story.

Skull drawing and creative writing activity

1. Students will collect and/or observe food sources outside their home or inside their kitchen, think about what kind of teeth are best for consumers to eat their type of food, and draw pictures of skulls and teeth that would help consumers eat the food. Students will also identify whether the consumers are herbivores, omnivores, or carnivores. 
2. Students will also write a story about a self-selected consumer that lives in the Sandia Mountains, focusing on how that consumer lives and survives in the mountains specifically focusing on some of the adaptations the animal posseses.

Lesson Conclusion/Potential Practice at Home

Students can share their drawings and their story with family and household members in a read aloud.

Accommodations-Modifications

Just about any grade level can do this lesson and its activities.

Leaf Adaptations & Characteristics

Basic Lesson Description and Procedure:

1. Students watch the video at the SMNHC.
2. Students review producers (plants) and consumers (animals).
3. Students think about what producers provide to the rest of the ecosystem.
4. Students observe different kinds of producers in the Sandia Mountains.
5. Students learn about trees at the SMNHC and their leaf-like characteristics (leaves, needles, or scales).
6. Students learn about the functions of leaves – as the place where photosynthesis occurs – absorbing the sun’s energy and converting it into glucose so the plants can grow.
7. Students learn about coniferous and deciduous trees and their specific characteristics as adaptations to an ecosystem’s habitat and climate.
8. Students make observations of different deciduous leaves – focusing on their parts (leaf blade, petiole, leaf node, vein); arrangement (simple or complex); edge formation (smooth, wavy, lobes, jagged); shape (circular, triangular, heart-shaped, lance-like); color; and texture.
9. Students learn how to preserve the leaves they’ve collected
10. Students learn how to make leaf rubbings.
11. Students collect a variety of leaves, preserve them, and make leaf rubbings of them using crayons, colored pencils, or a regular pencil with an adult’s permission.
12. Students identify different parts, characteristics, and traits of the leaves (leaf type, leaf parts, leaf edge, leaf shape, color, texture, etc.).
13. Students create a leaf booklet of their leaves with leaf rubbings or drawings, leaves collected, and identification of leaf parts and characteristics. They can be as creative as they would like to be.

Observation activity

With permission of a grown-up, go outside, collect as many leaves as possible from trees, the ground, indoor plants, etc.

Lesson Conclusion/Potential Practice at Home

Students share their leaf booklets and discoveries with family and others they live with.

Accommodations-Modifications

Just about any grade level can do this lesson and activity

Plant adaptations Outdoor-Follow-up Activity

Directions:

1. With permission of a grown-up, go outside, collect as many leaves as possible from trees, the ground, indoor plants, etc.
2. Preserve the leaves you collect using folded sheets of paper, a notebook, or some other book, and something heavy like a rock or can of food.
3. Make a leaf rubbing of each leaf collected using crayons, colored pencils, or pencils on paper. Or students can draw each leaf they have collected if a leaf rubbing doesn’t work.
4. Tape or glue the leaf on the back of the leaf rubbing or drawing.
5. Identify whether the leaf is deciduous or from a coniferous tree/plant (most will be deciduous).
6. Identify and label the major leaf parts – leaf blade, petiole, node, veins.
7. Identify the leaf edge type, the leaf shape, whether it is simple or compound, color, texture, etc.

Abiotic Factors- Ecosystems Change Over Time

Basic Lesson Description and Procedure:

1. Students watch the video at the SMNHC.
2. Students review abiotic & biotic parts of the ecosystem.
3. Students understand how abiotic factors and natural forces impact and change ecosystems over time.
4. Students learn that these changes can happen quickly, over a very long period, and/or over and over again in cycles or seasonally.
5. Students discover how fire can quickly change ecosystems and learn about the fire adaptations of ponderosa pine trees.
6. Students learn about seasonal flooding in the Rio Grande bosque.
7. Students observe erosion in the Sandia Mountains.
8. Students begin to understand the difference between weather & climate.
9. Students observe rocks, think about how they are formed, and understand how fossils are formed.
10. Students learn how scientists know that ecosystems change over time through careful observations and data collection.
11. Students create an observation log and choose at least three different things to observe over time (e.g., daily weather, cloud cover, precipitation, a plant growing in their yard, etc.).

Observation activity:

With permission of a grown-up, go outside, collect as many leaves as possible from trees, the ground, indoor plants, etc.

Lesson Conclusion/Potential Practice at Home:

Students share their leaf booklets and discoveries with family and others they live with.

Accommodations-Modifications:

Just about any grade level can do this lesson and activity

Creating an Observation Log & Beginning to use it Outdoor-Follow-up Activity

Directions: 

1. Using a piece of paper (lined would be best), create 4 columns.
2. Label the first column “Time & Date”.
3. Label the second column “Observation 1 – Weather”
4. Label the third column “Observation 2” & choose a second thing to observe.
5. Label the fourth column “Observation 3” & choose a third thing to observe.
6. Make observations daily for at least 10 days, preferably 2 weeks, and record your observations.  See examples in video.
7. After you are finished making your observations, analyze your data by asking and answering the questions “what has changed over time in my three observations? What has stayed the same? How do I know?”
8. Write about your observations and your analysis using information from the data you collected in your observation log.

Decomposition & Soil Structure: Parts 1 & 2 Lesson

Basic Lesson Description and Procedure:

Part I - Decomposers

1. Students watch the video from the SMNHC.
2. Students review what we’ve learned so far in the first 6 videos – ecosystems, biotic & abiotic factors, parts of & interrelationships within ecosystems, scat, skulls, leaves, change over time.
3. Students determine what is missing through viewing images of different kinds of mushrooms & mold – fungi!
4. Students learn basics about fungi & bacteria as decomposers.
5. Students understand the difference between decomposers & consumers which break dead things into smaller pieces through fragmentation (detritivores & scavengers fragment dead material into smaller parts).
6. Students learn the definition of matter – the physical stuff that all things are made of.
7. Students visit a composting facility where they see decomposition speeded up.
8. Students recognize that decomposers return dead matter and the energy contained within it to the soil.
9. Students make observations of food scraps and learn how to record these observations in an observation log.
10. Students collect food scraps, seal them in plastic bags, and make observations over a 2-week period while recording in their observation log (see Activity #1 directions below).

Part II – Soil Structure

1. Students observe the basic structure of soil (organic matter, top soil, subsoil, parent rock & bedrock) and how soil is formed.
2. Students learn how to collect a soil sample in the video.
3. Students make observations as we play in the soil for a short time.
4. Students learn how to separate the layers of soil collected into the soil layers (organic matter, clay, silt, sand).
5. Students learn how to record results in their observations by describing the sample area collected and drawing and labelling what they will see in the soil structure activity.
6. Students participate in their own soil collection & layer activity (see activity 2 directions below).

Rotting Food Scraps Activity #1:

Students collect food scraps, place them in a closed, see-through container or zip-lock bag, and make observations of what happens to the rotting material over a 2-week period of time.

Soil Structure Activity #2:

Students collect a soil sample and learn how soil is composed of layers.

Lesson Conclusion/Potential Practice at Home:

Students share their observations & drawings with their families and others they live with.

Accommodations-Modifications:

Just about any grade level can do this lesson and activity

Rotting food scraps observation activity #1

Directions:

1. Collect at least 3 food scraps (orange & banana peels, pieces of bread, chicken bones, beans, rice, pasta, cheese) – whatever they can find and have at home.
2. Place food scraps in sealable baggies (use rubber band or other tie if needed).
3. Create an observation log with at least 4 columns & 15 rows (see sample below)
4. Make observations daily for two weeks of each food scrap in their observation log.
5. Observe changes in the decomposing food scrap samples over time

Soil structure activity #2

Directions:

1. Gather materials needed – clear glass jar or plastic container with lids or plastic bags & rubber band or other tie, small shovel or digging implement.
2. With permission of adult, collect a sample of soil from outside.
3. Add water to the soil sample, close lid, shake, and let sample settle for the night.
4. Observe the soil sample the next day, recording your observations.
5. Include a description of the soil sample location/site – what was there, what did you notice about the sample and its location, etc.
6. Draw a picture of the settled soil sample and label the layers of the soil that you see in the jar or container (organic matter, clay, silt, sand, etc.) – see video for example of this observation record & drawing.

Observation Log Sample

Review and Final Project

Basic Lesson Description and Procedure:

1. Students watch the video from the SMNHC.
2. Students review what we’ve learned so far in the first 7 videos – ecosystems, biotic and abiotic factors, parts of and interrelationships within ecosystems, scat, skulls, leaves, change over time, decomposers and soil structure.
3. Students reconsider the essential concepts addressed throughout the 7 lessons – ecosystems, interconnected parts, energy, & matter.
4. Students are introduced to the final project – they observe collection of parts of an ecosystem, they review these parts (abiotic, producers, consumers, decomposers), they see a model & exemplar of a potential project, they learn about what the project entails, and they are given questions to consider.
5. Students are encouraged to be creative and have fun with their projects and asked to share their projects via social media or email.

Procedures

See attached project directions

Lesson Conclusion/Potential Practice at Home

Students share their projects with their families and others they live with.

Accommodations-Modifications

Just about any grade level can do this lesson and activity.

Final Project Description

Make a model of an ecosystem that demonstrates how matter and energy flow through the different parts of an ecosystem.

Standard alignment

This project is directly tied to the performance standard for NGSS 5-LS-2-1 – develop a model to describe the movement of matter among plants, animals, decomposers, and the environment (see standard below).

Directions

1. Part I – Identify the parts of an ecosystem
   1. Parts = Abiotic, Producers, Consumers (or evidence), Decomposers (or dead things with decomposers on them)
   2. This can be done by collecting the parts outside, drawing the different parts, or if in video, by pointing out the parts verbally.
2. Part II – Explain
   1. What do the living things need to survive?
   2. How is energy moving through the ecosystem?
   3. How is matter moving through the ecosystem?
3. Part III – Describe
   1. What would happen to the ecosystem if you removed something?
   2. Do this for 3 different things.
4. Be creative and have fun!
1. In the lesson video, we created a diorama of an ecosystem and verbally explained how the ecosystem functions and how energy and matter move through an ecosystem, and described what happens when something gets removed.
2. Students are to be creative and develop and design their own ecosystem model in a way that works for them. They can…
   1. Draw pictures of an ecosystem.
   2. Collect objects to represent different parts of an ecosystem.
   3. Create a video of them showing how an ecosystem works in a natural area.
   4. Complete the project inside if needed.
   5. Take photographs of items and design a collage.
   6. The options are endless and limited only by student imagination!
5. Share projects with adult permission to our Facebook or Instagram pages or via email.