EDUC 2220- Educational Technology Lesson Plan

Ecosystem Changes

Amber Campbell
Fourth Grade/ Life Science

Common Core Standards:

Changes in an organisms environment are sometimes beneficial to its survival and sometimes harmful.
Fossils can be compared to one another and to present-day organisms according to their similarities and
differences.

Lesson Summary:
The children will watch an animated video via smartboard that explains the succession of an ecosystem. They
will then create their own animated slide show on google slides via chromebooks (laptops) to explain the
changes of an ecosystem of their choice.

Estimated Duration:

This lesson will take about 250 Minutes. I plan on dividing the lesson into 5 days, with each class period
lasting 50 minutes.

Commentary: I plan to approach this lesson as a new topic for most students, which it will be. I anticipate that
the challenge will be the complete understanding of how the ecosystems change over time and how different
natural factors affect certain ecosystems. I will present different ecosystems and how they change over time. I
will get the students interested into this lesson by relating it to them and the environment in which they live.

Instructional Procedures:

Day 1:
First 15 minutes: Introductory activity- Students will report previous knowledge on ecosystem by discussion.
They will then answer pre-assessment questions regarding what ecosystems are from a teacher created google
form.0 and general knowledge of ecosystem changes.
25 minutes: I will show a video on the smartboard about the explorations of ecosystems and how they can be
naturally affected as well as pollution damaged. Students will tell me what they learned from the video.
Last 10 mins: I will explain what ecosystems are in my own words. I will then talk about what we will be
doing on day 2, which is getting assigned pairs and starting the actual individual slides.

Day 2:
For 20 minutes: First I will assign pairs. Next I will explain to them how they will use the chromebooks to
create their own slideshows about an ecosystem of their choice. I will then go over the organization of their
slides. Their slides will be as follows; an intro, define their ecosystem, parts of ecosysytem- biotic and abiotic,
give relationship between parts (food web), then two slides for two different changes and effects short and long
term, then a conclusion...at least 7 slides in total.
10 mins: I will give them examples to choose from and give them the option of choosing one with my
approval. The students will be able to ask questions about the specific ecosystems they have in mind.
20 minutes: The students will begin brainstorming by writing down some ideas of ecosystems that may be
interesting to them. At the end of the day I will collect their papers.

Day 3:
First 15 minutes: I will pass out the papers that their brainstormed ideas are written on from day 2, and the
chromebooks and go over how to access google slides. The students will sit next to their assigned partners.
30 mins: The students will work on gathering information on their chosen ecosystem; the different parts, what
animals they will include, relationships between the different parts of the ecosystem etc. I will walk around to
offer help to those who need it and observe the progress of the slides.
10 minutes: The students will save their information gathered for the day and return the chromebooks.

Day 4:
First 5 minutes: I will pass out the chromebooks.
40 minutes: The students are to finish putting the information gathered onto the slides. I will give a warning to
wrap it up when there are ten minutes left.
Last 5 minutes: I will collect the chromebooks

Day 5:
First 10 mins: I will allow final touches and assign the order of which the groups will present their slides.
40 mins: The groups will take turns presenting to the class the type of ecosystem they chose and the
information gathered.

Pre-Assessment:
One strategy to pre-assess students knowledge of the standards in my lesson is I will create a pre-quiz using
google forms. I will include information about ecosystems and vocabulary related to this subject area. By
doing the quiz this way, I will be able to see their answers and see what they know as a whole and what could
be improved.

Scoring Guidelines:
I will grade the quiz using a check system just to see how much they already know. By seeing what
they got right or wrong, I will be able to determine how much they know. I will simply grade it based
 off of how many checks they get correct, assigning 5 points to each for a possible grade of 100 points.

Post-Assessment:
I will give the same questions from the quiz, in the form of a test to see what they have learned. This
time I will double the points since they will have already taken the quiz and done the project.

Scoring Guidelines:
The students will be graded by percentage out of 100 points.
90-100 A
80-90 B
70-80 C
60-70 D
59 and Below F

Differentiated Instructional Support

The students who have accelerated during this project will be offered extra credit to help those who dont quite
understand.

An additional activity that will be offered to those who may be struggling is, write down what it was they
didnt understand and then explain how the student helper made it easier or clearer for them to get the concept
down.

Extension
http://www.ducksters.com/science/ecosystems/world_biomes.php
This site provides explanations and games that can easily help children understand what ecosystems are and
how they are affected by the things they consist of.

Homework Options and Home Connections

Their homework will be to go home to their very own backyards and list things that are in their backyards
ecosystem. We will compare and contrast them from one another.

Interdisciplinary Connections
Math: how much rain or lack thereof does it take to impact an environment?
Reading: strengthening vocabulary
Materials and Resources:

For teachers Smartboard, Laptop, projctor

For students Smartboard, chromebooks (laptops)

http://easyscienceforkids.com/all-about-ecosystems/

http://www.geography4kids.com/files/land_ecosystem.html

https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/kids/solutions/prepare/ecosyste
ms.html

Key Vocabulary
Abiotic
Biotic
Ecosystem
Migration
Populations
Resources
Climate
Evidence
Impact
Interrelationships
Organism
Reproduce
Survive