The World In His Hands Science Class Blog - SCIENCE BETWEEN THE PAGES

The World in His Hands - Lesson 4

10/3/2022

manna moment

Psalm 95:1-3- "Oh come, let us sing to the LORD, let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come into His presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise. For the LORD is a great God and a great King above all gods."

Do you remember in the first ecosystem how there was no death? When Adam and Eve ate the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, sin entered the world and the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23) therefore death entered. We will be learning about food chain and food webs today. This is part of the natural world we live in today. Animals eat plants, animals eat animals and humans eat animals and plants. While this may seem gruesome, we have hope in Jesus Christ. Sin entered the world through one man, and one man, Jesus, brought us salvation from sin and death. It won't always be this way. It is prophesied in Isaiah 65:25 that "The wolf and the lamb shall graze together; the lion shall eat straw like the ox, and dust shall be the serpent's food. They shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain says the LORD." "For the LORD is a great God and a great King above all gods."

reviewing the water cycle with salt crystals

For the student's 'At Home' Adventures, I had them choose to either observe the water cycle in a sandwich bag or make Salt Crystals on a stick. See Lesson 3 blog for details on these activities.

Hope and I decided to make salt crystals to observe this past week and today she presented them to the class as we reviewed the water cycle.

Here is how we made them.

Hope formed some modeling clay pedestals to place her toothpicks in.

Hope and I then made a super saturated solution with salt.

I marked where the water height was and placed the bowl near a window.

Hope observed the crystals each day.

After only about a day, the water level was significantly less and there were crystals forming on the toothpicks.

Large crystals on the toothpicks and the water is almost completely evaporated.

The students each felt the crystals. They were hard and rough not fluffy and soft like they looked.

going out to eat

Today, I introduced nine more vocabulary cards called Energy Transfer Cards.

Food chain- sequence of transfers of matter and energy in the form of food from organism to organism

Food web- all food chains in a single ecosystem.

Producers- Organism that makes its own food ie: plants

Herbivore- Animal that eats only plants.

Carnivore- Animals that eat only meat.

Omnivore- Animals that eat plants and animals

Consumer- A living thing that must eat other organisms to obtain energy necessary for life.

Scavenger- An animal that feeds on dead organisms.

Decomposer- Organism that breaks down dead organic material.

I introduced these by all using cards from 'What Role Do I Play' cards. These are drawn pictures of different kinds of animals. Once the students understood the meaning of the new vocabulary words, I had them apply that knowledge to identifying which animal was a herbivore, carnivore, etc.

read aloud- Pass the Energy by barbara shaw mckinney

This book uses the imagery of links to guide the students through different food chains in different types of ecosystems. As we read through each different ecosystem, we identified the links that were involved in that food chain. The students also had a listening guide that would help them identify their vocabulary words introduced previously in the class.
At the conclusion of the book, I had the students make little foods chains using construction paper. Yellow represented the sun, green represented producers and purple represented consumers.

Food chain energy transfer game

For our final activity with our new vocabulary words, we played this Energy Transfer Game. I passed out Producer, Herbivore, Carnivore, Omnivore, Scavenger, and Decomposer cards to the students. These are laminated, hole-punched and have a piece of yarn attached so they can go over a student's head.
I represented the Sun and gave out Energy Strips to each Producer. Producers are not allowed to move at all, they are 'planted'. Herbivores and omnivores can move and take the 'Energy' strip from producers. Carnivores can take 'Energy' stripes from other carnivores, omnivores or herbivores but cannot take from producers. If a consumer runs out of 'energy' strips they've collected, they die and a scavenger can take their place. Every step that a consumer takes, they must tear off a square from their energy strip. Scavengers and decomposers receive energy by picking up these torn squares from the floor. They, too, can only move if they are gathering energy.