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Provided by: Wisconsin Center for Environmental Education |Published on: January 9, 2025
Lesson Plans
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Synopsis
This resource includes two games where students model photosynthesis and the food chain.
Students will understand how plants convert solar energy, water, and carbon dioxide into energy and oxygen, how energy moves through the food chain, and the impacts of climate change on the food chain.
Students will use data from the Snowshoe Hare in Wisconsin as an example of climate change impacts.
The Photosynthesis Promenade activity is a great opportunity for students to connect learning to movement, which is valuable for kinetic learners and provides a content-relevant movement break.
The resource includes extension activities for teachers to implement based on student interests and needs.
Prerequisites
Students should be familiar with chemical formulas and should know that our energy for our body comes from food.
Teachers should refer to the materials list before implementing the activity, as there are a few materials that require prep. Materials are included in the DEN Kit, which Wisconsin educators can borrow, but this kit is not necessary to implement the activity.
For the Photosynthesis Promenade movement activity, teachers should refer to the recommended student numbers written at the bottom of the Diagram for Photosynthesis Promenade.
The climate scenario in the Food Chain Game is based on the Snowshoe Hare in Wisconsin, but students in other states can still find value in this activity.
Differentiation & Implementation
To make climate change connections to Photosynthesis Promenade, teachers can highlight the role of photosynthesis in the carbon cycle and carbon sequestration, connecting this process to the greenhouse effect. The Greenhouse Effect video may be helpful in introducing this topic.
Alternatively, if students already understand climate change and the carbon cycle, teachers can use the resource Climate Change and Plants to demonstrate the impacts of climate change on plants.
To help students decode the word photosynthesis and its meaning, it may benefit them to precede the lesson by working with other terms containing the root words to identify their meaning.
To help students with vocabulary acquisition, teachers can assign each student one of the bolded vocabulary words from this lesson to draw a picture and write a definition for. These vocabulary cards can be combined to make a student-created word wall.
After brainstorming ways to make the food chain more sustainable in the Food Chain Game, students can create posters to promote their favorite ideas.
