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PRINTABLE
VERSION OF
LESSON PLANS FOR
'FAST-FOOD-WEB-MENUS'
WINNER - "Chevron/NSA Best Classroom
Practices Award" - Best Middle School Science Lesson in the United States
- 1998
LESSON SERIES DESCRIPTION
This project is divided into several hands-on cooperative
investigation based stages plus testing and extensions.
Groups of students first study and illustrate photosynthesis by assembling
sugar molecule models from tear-apart H2O and CO2
models.
Students then gather 15 - 20 magazine cutout pictures of animals, bugs,
plants, etc. In groups of five to six, students mix and then divide pictures
into consumers and producers. They then divide the consumers into herbivores
and carnivores. The carnivores are further divided into first, second,
third (top) level carnivores, and scavangers. Students individually construct
simple food chains using four to five cutout magazine pictures.
Finally, groups pick a level of consumer and design, produce, and present
decorated bi-fold or tri-fold food-web restaurant menus that depict the
feeding patterns of their chosen level of consumer 'customers'. To illustrate
the interaction among organisms, the menus included soups, entrees, desserts,
beverages and 'specials'. Students research both predator and prey using
a variety of books, videos, and technologies such as CD-ROM and the Internet.
Each student also chooses a 'typical' customer to the restaurant and composes
an autobiographical sketch including a catchy name, usual habitat, and
'favorite' dishes.
Students finally visit the 'restaurants', ordered from a menu, and calculate
the the total check including tax and tip.
SOME
EXAMPLES OF OUR MENUS
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