5-LS2-1 lessons
Develop a model to describe the movement of matter among plants, animals, decomposers, and the environment.
The Next Generation Science Standards code 5-LS2-1 asks students to: “Develop a model to describe the movement of matter among plants, animals, decomposers, and the environment.” These Fieldbook lessons teach it hands-on, with everyday materials, a printable teacher guide and a student sheet.
Our Living Planet Grade 4 · partly supports this standard
- Can a jar keep itself alive? 50–60 min to build, then 5 min check-ins twice a week for 4 weeks, and a 30 min Reveal and Act
Each team builds a small world of soil, water, air and plants inside a clear jar, seals it, and keeps an observation log for four weeks beside an open jar built the same way. Students explain how water and air are used again and again inside the sealed jar, and why it still needs light from outside.
Food Webs: Who Eats Whom? Grade 5
- 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.
- Who cleans up? 45 min to set up, 5 min check-ins twice a week, then 30 min after 2 weeks (bread) and 20 min after 4 to 6 weeks (leaves)
Students seal bread and fruit in taped zip bags to watch mould grow without ever opening them, and bury mesh bags of dry leaves in soil to weigh what's left weeks later. They explain how decomposers break down dead things and return matter to the soil for plants to use again.
NGSS is used as written in Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, so the code 5-LS2-1 matches there. Other states word and number their own versions: see curriculum alignment for your state's codes.
More NGSS standards for Grade 5
All standards we teach · Curriculum alignment by state and province
Three full lessons, free
Make a free account and download any three Fieldbook lessons as printable PDFs. No card needed.