SC.5.8.2.a: Use models to describe that energy in animals’ food (used for body…
Use models to describe that energy in animals’ food (used for body repair, growth, and motion and to maintain body warmth) was once energy from the sun.
The Nebraska College and Career Ready Standards for Science (2024) outcome SC.5.8.2.a (Physical Sciences) for Grade 5 says: “Use models to describe that energy in animals’ food (used for body repair, growth, and motion and to maintain body warmth) was once energy from the sun.” This Fieldbook unit teaches it hands-on, with everyday materials and a printable teacher guide and student sheet for every lesson. Official wording: Nebraska College and Career Ready Standards for Science (2024).
Food Webs: Who Eats Whom? Grade 5 · partly supports this outcome
Where a plant's food comes from, what happens when the wolves disappear, who cleans up, and how much life hides under a log. Four lessons on how energy and matter move through living things.
- Where does a plant get its food? 50–60 min, plus 10 min to weigh seedlings two weeks later
Students sink spinach leaf disks in baking soda water and watch them float back up in the light as they make oxygen, then start bean seedlings with no soil at all and weigh them two weeks later. They explain that plants build their food from air and water using light, not from the soil.
- What would happen if the wolves disappeared? 45–60 min
Students become species in a northern forest or a prairie and connect themselves with yarn into a living food web. When one species is removed, everyone who feels the yarn tug finds out how far the change spreads, and students explain why no species lives on its own.
Printable practice for SC.5.8.2.a
- Food Webs: Who Eats Whom? workbook included with the unit
2 English-support pages, 2 practice pages, 2 readings, 1 word wall, 1 unit review, 1 unit test, with answer keys.
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Compared with NGSS: 5-PS3-1.
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