Animal Tracks
Science | Food Chain | Lesson Plan
Prepared for NSERC’s PromoScience Program by Kutz Research Group at the University of Calgary
Faculty of Veterinary Medicine
Unit/Topic: Comparative Anatomy Time: 1 days
Fabien Mavrot Day 1: 1 hour
Kaleigh Eichel
September 20, 2021 Grades: 3-4, can be adapted to
younger
Local Experts:
● Hunters
● Elders
● Wildlife Officer
● Biologist
Assist with hands-on activities and share personal experiences and stories about tracking.
PromoScience Connection:
This lesson for students from grad 1 to 4 fits into the overarching learning goals associated with
wildlife health and monitoring by providing insight on the trophic relationships between different
parts of an ecosystem. Students are introduced to different species of the Arctic, learn how they
interact with each other and with the environment, and how those interaction can alter their
population. This curriculum is intended to improve the students’ understanding of population cycles
and prepare them for subsequent courses on wildlife monitoring and management.
Expectations: Identify overall or specific expectations from curriculum documents. These are guidelines
only and teachers can adapt expectations to their class.
By the end of this lesson, the grades 1-4 students should be able to:
● Grade 1: Unit E: Needs of Animals and Plants
o 1-1: Bring focus to investigative activities, based on their own questions and those of
others
o 1-4: Demonstrate positive attitudes for the study of science and for the application of
science in responsible ways.
o 1–11: Describe some common living things, and identify needs of those living things.
Demonstrate an understanding of the basic needs of animals and plants (e.g., the
need for food/energy, air, and water); Investigate the characteristics and needs of
animals and plants; and Demonstrate awareness that animals and plants depend on
their environment to meet their basic needs, and describe the requirements of good
health for humans.
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Animal Tracks
● Grade 2: Unit E: Small Crawling and Flying Animals
o 2-1: Investigate, with guidance, the nature of things, demonstrating an understanding
of the procedures followed.
o 2–4: Demonstrate positive attitudes for the study of science and for the application of
science in responsible ways.
● Grade 3: Unit E: Animal Life Cycles
o 3–1 Investigate the nature of things, demonstrating purposeful action that leads to
observations and inferences.
o 3–2 Identify patterns and order in objects and events studied; and, with guidance,
record observations, using pictures, words and charts; and make predictions and
generalizations, based on observations.
o 3–4 Demonstrate positive attitudes for the study of science and for the application of
science in responsible ways.
.
Learning Goals: Describe what the students are expected to learn. Share goals with students.
Students will learn about the concepts of food chain, food web, and ecosystem. Students will learn
how each link in the chain can impact other links if disappearing. Students will get familiar with the
idea that animal populations are dynamic and depend on factors such as food and predators.
Success Criteria: Describe from a student’s perspective what attainment of a learning goal looks like.
● Able to understand what a food chain is and how different part of an ecosystem interact with
each others. Able to understand how removing a link in the food chain can impact the other
links.
Pre-assessment: Describe links to prior knowledge
Previous personal experiences hunting or observing wildlife.
Learning Environment: Describe the setting including groupings and management strategies
Environment: Classroom or lab with a sink, computer, projector for PowerPoint. Whiteboard and dry
erase markers.
Equipment and Materials are available and prepared:
● Feet from various animals (caribou, wolf, polar bear, owl, hare), 4 litterboxes or Tupperware
containers filled with sand, water, handout, cut out tracks, candy, gloves, goggles, lab coat
Management considerations:
Safety: Wash hands with soap at the end of each lab session.
Accommodations: Students will be reminded that they need to work well with the other students in
the class during group activities. Teacher will circulate and monitor students to ensure understanding.
o For students with processing issues and or ESL/ELL students, considering making smaller
groups or in pair and have them do the food chain game together with the teacher.
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Animal Tracks
o For students with high levels of anxiety, particularly OCD, consider providing a copy of the
lab for students to look over prior to the lesson or discuss with the student which
questions will be asked so that the student can prepare for discussions involving bacteria
growth and cleanliness
- For students with ADHD, ADD or other focus issues, consider “chunking” the lessons and
spreading them out so that one part occurs before a recess/ break and the second part
occurs after recess/ break, with a brief recap to reinforce ideas from the first part of the
lesson
● This lesson is designed for grades 3-4. The lesson can be adapted for grades 1-2 by using
simpler language, focussing on observation skills, and removing some examples from the
powerpoint to leave more time for activities. The lesson can be more complex for grade 8-12
by focussing on more discussion around ecosystems, animal behaviour, and hunting.
Instructions
Day 1
Time Follow the PowerPoint
10 minutes “Minds on”: (slides 1-2) Introduce the concept of ecosystem and food chain, use the
questions on the power point to make the students participate.
10 minutes “Debate”: (Slide 3) Introduce the concept of food web. Discuss together with the
class on where should humans stand in the food web and if scavenging dead animals
is part of the food web.
Possible prompts to enhance discussion:
“If a fox eats a muskox that is already dead, should we have an arrow for that in the
food web?”
“what about grass benefiting from the nutrients from a dead animal? Also an arrow?”
“If a hunter kills a fox to sell its fur and get food in the store, is it part of the food
web?”
The discussion is intended to motivate the students to do their own thinking and
express their opinion, there is no definitive answer to those questions, a food web
can be as complex or as simple as we want. Some concepts such as “decomposer” or
“secondary users” that can be introduced by the teacher during the discussion.
For more info, see
https://maggiesscienceconnection.weebly.com/habitats-food-chains--webs-trophic-
pyramid.html
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/sanjac-earthscience/chapter/ecosystems/
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Animal Tracks
10 minutes “Minds on”: (slides 5-6)
Introduce the concept of herbivore, carnivore, and omnivore. Ask the students what
they consider themselves to be.
Use the pictures to illustrate how to differentiate herbivores and carnivores. This
connects to the lesson on comparative anatomy from the curriculum.
15 minutes “Action Piece”: Food chain game (slide 7)
● Distribute one “food chain link” card to each student.
● Ask the students to stand-up and make groups together with other “links” of
their food chain. Each student should grab or hold hand with the link(s)
directly next to them.
● There can be multiple combinations possible.
● Possible warm-up: you can gather the students in circle and show them the
cards and make the food chains together before playing the game.
10 minutes Minds on”: (slides 8-21)
Go through the different scenarios and ask the students what they think the next step
will be. The students should understand that changes in food chains can have
complex consequences.
5 minutes “Consolidate” and EXIT TICKET:
Ask the students what they learned and what they think/know about changes in the
food chains in the Arctic (or where they live).
Assessment (data collection)/Evaluation (interpretation of data)
This is an introductory module and students are encouraged to participate in all activities.
Additional Resources:
https://maggiesscienceconnection.weebly.com/habitats-food-chains--webs-trophic-pyramid.html
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/sanjac-earthscience/chapter/ecosystems/
i Some resources may not be authorized but are provided to identify potentially useful ideas for
teaching and learning. The responsibility to evaluate these resources rests with the user.
ii All website addresses listed were confirmed as accurate at the time of publication but are subject to
change.
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Animal Tracks
Activity: Food chains
Materials:
● Printouts of food chain links (below).
Preparation:
● Print the following pages as many times as needed to have one card per student
● Cut the cards (you can ask the students to do that).
Instructions:
● Possible warm-up: the students can sit in a circle and look at the cards and group them by food
chain together with the teacher.
● Each student receives one card.
● All students have to get up and find other students with cards belonging to the same food chain.
● Some cards can fit in several food chain (for example the wolf can eat muskox, caribou, and
hare)
● It may be that some chains have more than one link of each (for example two lemmings eating
grass).
● Students should hold hands or grabs the link(s) directly next to them in the chain.
● Once all students are grouped, ask each group to show their cards and discuss their grouping
● Clean up, wash hands.
Image references:
https://www.maxpixel.net/Hare-Bunny-Mammal-Easter-Animal-Nature-Rabbit-47898
https://openclipart.org/detail/319198/arctic-fox
https://freesvg.org/lemming
https://freesvg.org/papapishu-caribou
https://freesvg.org/wolf-sketch
https://freesvg.org/duck-sketch
https://pixabay.com/illustrations/snowy-owl-owl-bird-bird-of-prey-6259380/
https://pixabay.com/illustrations/seal-ice-floe-nature-animals-3322231/
https://freesvg.org/americanbrooktrout
https://www.flickr.com/photos/vintage_illustration/46785857971
https://www.maxpixel.net/Clipart-Flowers-Of-The-Field-Grass-Flowers-3283194
https://www.flickr.com/photos/alluvia/20920681032
https://pixabay.com/vectors/hunting-hunter-gun-silhouette-2824661/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/phylomon/15862072674
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Animal Tracks
Prepared for: by
Animal Tracks
Prepared for: by
Animal Tracks
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