Living Things and Energy: Watch, Test, Draw

Grades 2-5About 45 minutes a week

Life cycles, habitats and energy make sense once a child has watched a caterpillar change, covered a leaf and seen what happened, and drawn the arrows from the sun to his own lunch. The app can ask the facts; watching, testing and drawing happen here.

What you need

  • A jar with a mesh lid and a caterpillar found on a garden plant, with its leaves
  • A potted plant, aluminum foil and a spray bottle
  • A tray of sand or soil and a cup of water
  • A flashlight, paper, colored pencils and a ball of yarn

What done looks like

  • He puts his caterpillar drawings in order and names each stage.
  • His yard notes show what did better and what died back when the water changed.
  • He explains the waxy leaf and the foil leaf from what he saw.
  • His diagrams trace energy from the sun, and from a battery, with arrows he can explain.

What to do, grade by grade

  • Grade 2: raise a caterpillar through its life cycle and draw each stage; then shuffle the drawings and put them back in order.
  • Grade 3: mark two small patches of yard. Water one for two weeks and leave one dry; note which plants and bugs do better and which die back.
  • Grade 4: spray a waxy leaf and a soft leaf and watch the water. Foil part of a leaf for a week and compare. Pour water over a sand hill and sketch the channels it cuts.
  • Grade 5: draw the energy path in a flashlight (battery, wire, bulb, light, warmth). Build a yarn food web on the floor, cut one strand and predict. Draw his lunch back to the sun.
  • Grade 5: sit twenty minutes at one outdoor spot and list the living things and what nonliving things each one needs.

How to teach it

  1. Ask for a prediction before every test and write it down. A wrong guess is useful; it is what you check against.
  2. Every week ends with a labeled drawing or a diagram with arrows.
  3. For the foil leaf, say it plainly: leaves make the plant's food from sunlight, water and carbon dioxide from the air. Less light, less food.
  4. For the sand hill, pour three times the same way and ask what pattern shows up. Then look at pictures of canyons and valleys.
  5. In any energy drawing, each arrow means "gives energy to." Food chains always start with the sun.
  6. When a strand of the yarn web is cut, he says who now has less food and who has fewer hunters.

Safety: Move a caterpillar on its leaf, never by hand: some fuzzy Texas caterpillars sting. Wash hands after bugs and soil. Let the butterfly or moth go. Never open a battery.

Curriculum goals this sheet covers (9)

In the words of the grade-by-grade guide.

  • Describe the stages of a life cycle that includes metamorphosis, and put images of the stages in order.
  • Observes that when one condition in a habitat changes, some living things do better and others move or die back
  • Analyzes and interprets patterns in Earth's features to describe how landforms change over time (NGSS 4-ESS2-2)
  • Explores and explains how the structures of plants, such as waxy leaves, enable them to survive in their environment (Texas TEKS 4.13(A); NGSS 4-LS1-1)
  • Investigates and explains how most producers make their own food using sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide (Texas TEKS 4.12(A))
  • Trace energy through a system, including electrical, light, thermal and sound energy.
  • Diagram a food web and predict what happens to it when one population changes.
  • NGSS 5-PS3-1: use models to describe that the energy in animals' food, used for body repair, growth, motion and warmth, was once energy from the sun
  • TEKS 5.12(A): observe and describe how a variety of organisms survive by interacting with biotic and abiotic factors in a healthy ecosystem

Goals covered: Describe the stages of a life cycle that includes metamorphosis, and put images of the stages in order.Observes that when one condition in a habitat changes, some living things do better and others move or die backAnalyzes and interprets patterns in Earth's features to describe how landforms change over time (NGSS 4-ESS2-2)Explores and explains how the structures of plants, such as waxy leaves, enable them to survive in their environment (Texas TEKS 4.13(A); NGSS 4-LS1-1)Investigates and explains how most producers make their own food using sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide (Texas TEKS 4.12(A))Trace energy through a system, including electrical, light, thermal and sound energy.Diagram a food web and predict what happens to it when one population changes.NGSS 5-PS3-1: use models to describe that the energy in animals' food, used for body repair, growth, motion and warmth, was once energy from the sunTEKS 5.12(A): observe and describe how a variety of organisms survive by interacting with biotic and abiotic factors in a healthy ecosystem

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