This resource accompanies our Rethink 5th Grade Science course. It includes ideas for use, ways to support exceptional children, ways to extend learning, digital resources and tools, tips for supporting English Language Learners and students with visual and hearing impairments. There are also ideas for offline learning. 

Students use the books of April Pulley Sayre to explore how living organisms depend on one another and on the environment for survival.

In this two-part inquiry-based activity, students will practice using the scientific method while learning about decomposition, exploring how some types of garbage will decompose while others will not. Students can then go on to design their own experiment to test different variables affecting the rate of decomposition.

In this activity, students will use color-coded cards to represent different types of organisms in an ecosystem and model food chains to show the relationships between organisms. Students will also analyze simple scenarios and discuss consequences of change in the ecosystem.

Students learn how decomposers play an important part in the cycling of matter through an ecosystem by breaking down matter and returning it to the soil. They will set up a classroom composting bin.

This lesson plan focuses on food chains and food webs. There are multiple associated weblinks to supplemental videos and interactive resources.

This lesson is the second of a two-part series on the cycle of life. This series should help enhance student understanding of the flow of matter and energy and the interdependence of life by focusing on food chains and food webs.

In this lesson, students compare and contrast a coral reef and a kelp forest ecosystem and identify the abiotic and biotic factors within each.

In this lesson, students learn about ecosystem functions and the types of organisms found in ecosystems. Students complete a diagram of photosynthesis and use calculations to follow the flow of energy through producers, consumers, and decomposers. Students read to learn about the cycling of matter and create their own diagrams of the processes.

Students explore the interconnected relationships between plants and animals in an ecosystem. They will decorate wooden blocks with plants and animals and then stack them to simulate an ecosystem (producers on the bottom). They will then take turns removing blocks from the ecosystem, giving a possible reason for that particular organism's removal from the ecosystem until the ecosystem becomes so unstable that it collapses.

In this series of lessons, students will learn about ecosystems. In the first lesson, students will explore the different types of ecosystems and the structures and functions that are inherent in each one. In the second lesson, students will examine challenges to ecosystems, both man-made and natural issues. In the third lesson, students will learn about food webs and trophic levels. In the final lesson, students will apply their knowledge to construct a board game to teach others about ecosystems.

This 5th-grade Science Unit on Ecosystems helps students compare the characteristics of several common ecosystems, including estuaries and salt marshes, oceans, lakes and ponds, forests, and grasslands) and it helps students classify the organisms within an ecosystem according to the function they serve: producers, consumers, or decomposers (biotic factors). 

The North Carolina Museum of Natural Science created this resource as part of an online workshop series, but you are welcome to use or modify it for your classroom. It includes a video and written directions for creating nature journals and tips for incorporating them into your classroom. For information on taking any the Nature Neighborhood online workshops for CEUs or EE credit, visit: https://naturalsciences.org/learn/educators/online-workshops.

In this lesson, students will work together to construct a decomposition column. They will observe activity in the column and predict how changing elements may vary column activity. Students will use tools to measure and record data. Students will describe column activity in words and/or pictures to share with others.

This resource is an online game for students to study the food chain. Students will drag parts of the food chain to the correct order.

 This resource provides a lesson plan over 3 class periods centered around food chains and food webs in an ecosystem. Students will participate in a variety of digital and non-digital activities to master content such as parts of food chains and food webs, types of producers and consumers, and the interdependency of organisms in an ecosystem. 

Students participate in a simulation of a Shark Bay food web to view the relationships between members of that ecosystem.

Students create food webs and discuss the vital role each of the organisms plays in maintaining a food web.

In this lesson, students are introduced to the idea that trees create their own food energy. By acting out the flow of energy, students learn about producers, consumers, decomposers, and how they interact. As a conclusion, students draw their own comic strip about the adventures of Zippy the Energy who lives in a forest.

In this lesson, students go on a scavenger hunt and play a game to learn about the flow of energy through a forest ecosystem.