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Inspired by content from the upcoming PBS series EARTH A New Wild , the Ecosystem Explorer is a collection of videos, games, and infographics designed to take students deep into the ecosystems of three thrilling animals: vultures, wolves, and sharks.

Remove "science" tag and leave the biology one, which is more specific. Use an additional tag to designate what kind of resource this is: activity, lesson, video, field trip, etc.

Inspired by content from the upcoming PBS series EARTH A New Wild , the Ecosystem Explorer is a collection of videos, games, and infographics designed to take students deep into the ecosystems of three thrilling animals: vultures, wolves, and sharks. This is such a wonderful interactive site, which allows students to explore three different animals in their world: the vulture, wolf, and shark. I selected this resource because after navigating through myself I thought how beneficial and intriguing students would see it as well. The site gives facts about why these particular animals are essential to the environment, it also provide pictures of these creatures and games. This resource could be used when students are learning about animals and how essential they are to our environment, and what habitat and how these creatures live. I enjoyed this site and think that it could be a great tool for a future classroom.

This is a great lesson plan series that teaches 5th graders about the ecosystem. It goes into great detail about all the things that are necessary for it. It has things you can do for your more gifted students. It is a challenging lesson that pushes your students to critically think.

If it is for fifth grade, tag should say so, rather than K-5. 5-8 would be a better fit.

In this experiment, students will create their own terrarium. Creating a mini-habitat is a great way for the students to learn what it takes to make an ecosystem work. Not only do the students learn about ecosystems, they also get a sense of responsibility when it comes to keeping their ecosystem alive. I chose this resource because it was something that I did when I was in elementary school and I still remember what I learned from it to this day. I would use this experiment throughout a unit on ecosystems.

This lesson/activity introduces students to interesting new topics such as the ecosystem, the Artic peninsula, and the food chain. All of these topics come together through the discussion of animals from the Arctic sea and how they live and thrive based off of each other. First the general animal life of the Arctic sea is discussed, then a broken down description of each animal in that particular food chain is provided. The students are able to cut out and color these pictures, and make their own mobiles to help them remember the food chain in the ecosystem. I chose this lesson/activity because I think it had a good mixture of knowledge and activity which allows the students to learn without even realizing it. Animals eating each other tend to be exciting to younger students, and by explaining these topics they will be able to understand wildlife a bit better. This is a great source to use during an ecosystem unit, that will make the class interested in learning the new material and excited about the project at the end.

The St. Louis Zoo provides 8 lesson plans on conservation, populations and ecosystems, and characteristics of living organisms. I have used one in the past and adapted it to fit a higher grade level than listed. I selected this resource because I love connecting material to the zoo. It is valuable that students know that zoos are not only for people to go look at animals, but they are put in place to help repopulate endangered species as well. These resources can be used as is or adapted to fit other classroom needs.

Free downloadable program in which students can build a dam in a virtual ecosystem and see how the animals and plants living there adapt. It shows students what happens to plants and animals when a change is introduced to their environment, some adapt and live while some die. I liked this program because students can place the dam in different places thus having different effects. I would use this program while studying biological evolution to visually demonstrate how a single change in the environment can have a drastic effect on the surrounding plant and animal life (3-LS4).

This a second grade lesson plan that helps students learn how to put different animals into their right categories of vertebrates. It has different ways that you can assess the children on how well they learn the lesson. It is an excellent way to show that animals fit into different categories.

There are many ways to integrate art into your Science lesson plans and here is a great lesson. This is a lesson on balanced ecosystems that brings in art in a fun and educational way. This video shows a lesson that would be great to use in the classroom when discussing the ecosystem. A teacher can incorporate art into the science curriculum. When schools do not have enough time for fine arts, they can add them to other subject matters.

This website is really cool. There is a ton of great information on topics that I think would be interesting for kids of all ages. The images included with the information are awesome.

This site contains activities and projects for students to work on like creating their own space probe or looking at interactive maps. Its full of videos, current events, extra teaching resources and even describes way that everyone can get involved with helping the environment. It's a great interdiciplinary resource that can tie together a broad range of subjects and topics. The webiste resources are free but the magazine subsription does cost money. In addition to the teacher resources link there is also a special page just for young learners that includes music, games, movies, and more.

This resource is a Bill Nye video which talks about biodiversity dealing with both plants and animals. The video is 22 minutes and 58 seconds long. Bill Nye investigates and discovers many different plant and animal habitats. He even connects plant and animal habitats and relates them back to one another, showing correlations. I chose this resource because I feel that Bill Nye is perfect for getting students interested and I found the video to be very entertaining, as well as informational. This video would also be a great introduction to a learning segment about observations of plants and animals to compare the diversity of life in different habitats (2-LS4). This video does not have a specific age level that it is "meant" for but I felt like it would be great for all ages k-5. You could also just show certain clips to students rather than watching the entire video.

This video shows about how all organisms interact with each other and how they affect each other. He explores different environments and ecosystems. Bill Nye introduces science in a fun way, and he has different experiments that are easy for students to do.

I think this would be a good place to take students when talking about and exploring nature. Students could learn about different ecosystems and how animals live in nature. The watershed has several hands on activities for the students as well as scavenger hunts.

Since I plan on moving to Oahu for my teaching career, I found a website that has a bunch of fieldtrip options for the island. These locations could help teach topics such as biomes, ecosystems, plants, animals, etc.

This is a full lesson and activity provided by TeachersPayTeachers and it costs $3.00. The lesson and activity is aligned with NGSS-2-LS2-1. First the lesson will be taught to explain the importance of sunlight and water to plants. After the lesson is taught, the class will conduct an experiment to test what we just learned. I will have 3 plants. One will receive water and sun everyday. One will be in the closet and only receive water. The last one will just be in the window receiving sunlight. Since purchasing the lesson from TeachesPayTeachers you will also receive a lab journal for students to be able to write their predictions and record their observations. I chose lesson/activity because I thought it went well together. I like that is starts with the lesson then has a follow up activity for students to do. The science journal is something they can do throughout the week, also. I would use this lesson to introduce the topic of "Do plants need water and sunlight to grow" and have the activity has a follow up and something that could expand their knowledge throughout the week.