Energy Roles

We have been so busy in science class!  We had AMAZING discussions about energy roles.  Here is our whiteboard evidence to show our thinking.  Students created categories, then we discussed them until we agreed upon them.

How Do Trout Interact With Other Organisms To Get Their Food?

We have been busy trying to FIGURE OUT what happened to the trout in Lake Michigan.  We figured out through a reading that trout eat smaller fish, crayfish, shrimp and insect larvae.  We figured out that trout are predators.  This week we are working on figuring out how energy flows in an ecosystem.  We are investigating food webs to understand how the populations interact with each other.

Students are playing a food web game to gain experience in some of these interactions.  

Cellular Respiration Models

Students demonstrated their understanding of Cellular Respiration by creating models of the process.

  

What do organisms do with the food that they eat?

WHAT DO ORGANISMS DO WITH THE FOOD THAT THEY EAT?

Students figured out that when yeast eat, they produce carbon dioxide.  Ask them how we know that it was carbon dioxide in the balloon.

Students then conducted their own investigations to figure out how the yeast could produce more carbon dioxide.  Here are some pictures and videos from their investigations.  Ask them what they figured out.

What Happened to the Trout in Lake Michigan??

The trout population declined in Lake Michigan.....  What happened? 

Through investigations, we figured out that Populations CHANGE when something happens to their needs for survival.

We figured out that the needs for survival are in the following categories:

1.  food
2.  environment
3.  other organisms
4.  reproduction

Students generated questions related to the trout population that we will investigate.

These are the questions that we have investigated about food so far.  

Students have looked at food labels to determine what food is.

Students have dissected their dinners to figure out that all food can be traced back to plants.

We read about hydroponics to figure out that plants don't need soil to grow.