5-PS3-1 lessons
Use models to describe that energy in animals' food (used for body repair, growth, motion, and to maintain body warmth) was once energy from the sun.
The Next Generation Science Standards code 5-PS3-1 asks students to: “Use models to describe that energy in animals' food (used for body repair, growth, motion, and to maintain body warmth) was once energy from the sun.” These Fieldbook lessons teach it hands-on, with everyday materials, a printable teacher guide and a student sheet.
Food Webs: Who Eats Whom? Grade 5 · partly supports this standard
- 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.
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-PS3-1 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
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