During the Hidden Villa field trip students will explore the six plant parts in the garden. This Interactive Writing project is a fun way to put together their knowledge of the function of each plant part. Each day you will guide your students in making a poster of each plant part. At the end of the entire project, you can assemble your huge plant on a bulletin board. Here is a suggested schedule for this IAW project:

1. Introduce the plant part and guide an initial discussion about how they learned about this plant part at Hidden Villa
2. Invite a few students to come up and draw a huge representation of that plant part on chart paper (as each plant part will be on a different piece of paper it is a good idea to measure the width of those parts that will need to connect.
3. Invite one student to come up and write the plant part title.
4. Guide a focused discussion about the function of this plant part. Why is it important to the plant?
5. Help your students construct a sentence or two that summarizes the function of this plant park.
6. Invite different students to come up and write the sentence(s). As they write, you can focus on other writing, grammar, spelling or science teaching points depending on your students' needs and the issues that come up in each individual sentence.
7. Ask students to think of different examples of how humans use this particular plant part and write this list on another place on the poster. For example: stems - celery, rhubarb, wood from pine tree trunks

Before: Make sure you have a single-sided photocopied set of Hidden Villa life cards along with the accompanying checklist of animals and plants for each pair of students and a single, larger teacher set for teaching purposes (see Download Options). Orientation: Demonstrate how you would like students to perform each of the following steps in their groups:

1. Look at the pictures of plants and animals on your cards.
2. Read through the entire check list.
3. With your partner, match names with pictures.
4. In pencil, write each name under the picture.
5. Be ready to justify your decisions with your class.
6. After your class discussion, check your answers by looking at the class set of cards at the front of the room.

Share: Gather students together to share what they decided were the names of the animals and plants in each photo. When the class has finally come to a "consensus" for each photo, write the corresponding name on the class set of Hidden Villa cards posted on the board. Note: You will probably want to pass out envelopes or bags in which each pair can store their Hidden Villa cards.

Orientation: Ask your students to think about what they know about each animal or plant on the Hidden Villa cards. Pick 2-3 animals or plants to work on as a class. Write the class information about each on the class set of cards. Group: Students work in partners to come up with facts that they know for each plant or animal in their deck of Hidden Villa cards. They should have their field trip notes out for assistance. Give groups only about 10 minutes to do this. Let them know that they should work quickly, but that it's okay if they don't know facts for each card. Student Instructions:

1. Look through your cards to find one you have information about.
2. Use your notes to come up with as many facts as you can.
3. With your partner think about the following questions:
   • Did you see it at Hidden Villa?
   • Where does it live?
   • What is special about it?
   • What does it need to live?
4. Write as much as you know on the back of the card in a list.
5. Repeat this for as many cards as you can.

Share: Have groups share their information lists. Tell your class, "Hidden Villa has given me facts on each of our animals and plants. Let's see how many things we already know about them!" As your students present, check their answers on the back of the teacher set of Hidden Villa cards. If they share with information you are sure is correct that is not listed on your set of cards, you may want to add this information. Celebrate how much they already know as you read any other facts listed on your teacher set of cards that they did not mention. You probably won't have time to finish sharing about each card. You can finish at the beginning of the next lesson.

The biological classification of organisms is very complex. However, most upper elementary students should be familiar with at least some of the major groupings. This point in the unit provides a great opportunity to introduce the major kingdoms of organisms and the classification system of animals (ie: invertebrates and vertebrates - mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish etc.). You can find this lesson at the end of this unit section. If you do not wish to delve into this topic at the moment, move directly to step #4.

Orientation: Explain that when scientists want to understand how different living organisms interact with each other they use a very different way to classify them. This classification system helps scientists understand how energy flows through food chains, or what-eats-what. Guide a student discussion to introduce or review each category:

• producer (makes food using energy from the sun)
• herbivore (eats only plants)
• omnivore eats both plants and animals)
• carnivore (eats other animals for its energy)
• decomposers (breaks down dead material into fertile soil).

Support: Students use a category chart (Download Options) or write the 5 categories on sticky-notes to create their own chart on their desks. Sort at least 5 cards together as a class so that there is an example in each category before asking student to sort their cards into each category with their partners. Student Instructions:

1. Read the information you wrote on the back of each Hidden Villa card.
2. Sort your cards onto your category chart.
3. As you sort, justify your decision with your partner.
4. Be ready to share your ideas.
5. After class discussion, record your sort in your notebook.

Share: Facilitate a discussion about the classification of each Hidden Villa card. Ask students to justify their decision based on the characteristics of the ecological category and the information they know about the organism. Extension: Invite students to think of other animals they know that fit in each category and add it to their lists.

This can be a fun, short PE game to get kids moving, while at the same time drilling the basic processes of photosynthesis into their heads. It is based on the simple game "red-light, green-light." Preparation: In class, each pair of students gets two pieces of green construction paper. On one paper write: water (H20) On the back of this paper write the first two letter of the word sugar: SU. On the other paper write: Carbon Dioxide (CO2). On the back write the letters: GAR. Draw a sun on yellow paper and a nighttime scene on black paper. Staple these toghether back-to-back. (If you have an "extra" student s/he can help with this task.) Orientation: Review the process of photosynthesis. Emphasize that plants need the energy from the sun to drive the process and that both water and carbon dioxide are needed. Play: In the game, students will pretend to be the chlorophyll on their pieces of paper.

• Linking arms they can advance from the baseline of the basketball court to the other side when you show the "sun" side of the "day."
• As they walk both partners need to repeatedly shout, "photosynthesis!" to represent that the plant is currently using the energy from the sun to drive the process of photosynthesis.
• When the sign is turned around to show "night" partners must stop immediately.
• If they don't, return them to the beginning of the photosynthesis process (the starting line).
• The first pair to reach the end needs to say a summary of the process of photosynthesis to win to job of being the day/night.

Please Note: This game can be adapted for younger students. Instead of writing the equation of photosynthesis on green paper, simply have students write "Leaf" on one side and "Sugar" on the other.

We e often tell students that decomposers are the link that moves the food chain around in circles. However, older students (4th and 5th grades) might benefit from a clarification of thie concept. When we typically draw food chains, we start with the sun and end with the decomposer. Confusion likes in the fact that decomposers do not recylce dead matter and turn it into the sun, which, in our simplified drawings, supposedly begins the food chain. Explain to students that plants and animals need two things in order to grow: nutrients and energy. At the beginning of the food chain, plants get nutrients from soil and energy from the sun. Energy from the sun provides plant the power they need to carry out all the steps necessary to extract nutrients from the soil and combine them to build new plant material. When a rabbit eats a plant, its digestive system breaks down the plant materail and releases the stored energy to power its own movement and growth. We all know that moving takes up a lot of energy. When a rabbit runs it uses up energy (originally from the plant) to power its movement. That energy is spend, lost to the food chain. Energy that is not used for movement is stored in the rabbit's body and used for growth. The plant nutrients that the rabbit cannot break down and use are pushed out of its body as scat and lost from the food chain. When a coyote comes and eats the rabbit, creating another link in the food chain. At the end of the food chain, most of the stored energy originally from the sun has been used up and whatever remains is used by the decomposer to fuel its movement and growth. The decomposer "poops out" the left-over nutrients, which go back into the soil to be used again by plants to grow bigger.

The following activity is meant to give a fun visual for understanding the more complicated intricacies of the food chain. You will need: three colored pieces of paper (yellow, blue and green) and a way to hang your teacher set of Hidden Villa cards around students' necks. Write the following on each piece of paper:Yellow-Energy from the sun Blue-Nutrients from the soil Green-Stored energy

1. Draw a basic food chain on the board. Explain that some details have been left out. "This diagram seems to say that all a plant needs in order to grow is energy from the sun. What else does a plant need? "
2. Show the yellow and blue paper and explain what they represent.
3. Ask for volunteers to role play each organism in the food chain (e.g. plant, rabbit, two carnivores, worm). They should hold their Hidden Villa card and stand in order.
4. As you hand the plant volunteer the yellow and blue pieces of paper ask the class what the plant does with these two things. "Yes, the plant uses the energy from the sun to make sugar. Then the cells in the plant can use the energy of the sugar to suck up the nutrients from the soil and be able to grow bigger."
5. Take out the green piece of paper. Put this piece of paper on top of the others and paper-clip or staple them together to emphasize the sun's energy and nutrients from the soil are now present in the plant as stored energy.
6. The plant volunteer now hands the papers over to the rabbit, representing the rabbit eating the plant.
7. Remind students that the stored energy is made up 2 components that are separated in the digestive system: energy and nutrients.
8. "Some of this energy the rabbit uses up by running around and the movement of her heart and lungs." Cut a strip from the stack of paper about 1/4 of the paper width. Crumple up the green part, reminding students that the rabbit converted the "green" stored energy into its components. Then crumple up the yellow part and put in your pocket to represent the energy being used up.
9. "Some of the nutrients in the stored energy of the plant the rabbit can't break down and it scats this out onto the ground." Take the blue part and drop it on the ground.
10. Now explain that the rest of the energy and nutrients the rabbit stores in its body by growing bigger. (This is the part of the stapled together paper that the rabbit volunteer is still holding.

Repeat this process with the next two carnivores in the food chain. At the end the top carnivore "dies" and is now eaten by the decomposer. The decomposer is able to break down all the nutrients the other animals weren't able to (worm volunteer could have a sock puppet and mime munching up all the blue nutrients left on the ground) and gives them back to the soil, which the plant can now use again. Point out, though, that the plant will need to capture new energy from the sun.

This role play isn't perfect, but in my experience does give students a fun, visual way to think about the complexities of the food chain. At the end you could guide your students in drawing a "reformed" diagram of the food chain with all of the new information included.

Students choose a Hidden Villa food chain to represent artistically. Students draw the outline of each organism in their food chain on different colored construction paper. Links in the chain should be drawn in order and in increasing sizes, such that the top predator is the biggest. Students cut the outlines and glue all the levels together, with the sun being the smallest piece inside the plant's outline. This project illustrates the top carnivore's dependence on all the animals in the food chain, and ultimately on the plants and sun, for survival. Note: Emphasize that students need to start BIG by making the outline of the the top carnivore take up the entire space of the construction paper.

You Will Need: Math Mystery #1 on an overhead transparency. Copies of Math Mystery #2 for each pair of students. Model: Read aloud the first math mystery. At the end, ask your students what steps they could do to help Farmer Garth find the answer. Model going back and circling the pertinent information on the overhead. Then talk through making a t-chart table with # of mice on one side and # of missing sunflower seed rows on the other.

Ask your students to figure out the "rule" (multiply by 3). Write the rule, in words, across the board: the number of mice x 3 = the number of mission sunflower seed rows. Point out that this takes a lot of space. Do they have any ideas how we could represent this rule in a shorter way? Lead students to using letters to represent the amounts (m x 3 = s). Supported: Students follow the same steps in pairs as they read through the second Hidden Villa math mystery:

1. Read the story together
2. Circle the important information
3. Make a table
4. Figure out the rule
5. Write the rule as an algebraic expression.

Share: Have a few students explain how they figured out the mystery and see if all students came up with the same answer. Their answer should be: number of owls x 2 = number of mice eaten.

In this lesson students will first make up the "relational rules" for each link in their Hidden Villa food chain. In subsequent lessons they will turn this information into a food pyramid. You Will Need: The downloadable food pyramid student worksheet. Model: Demonstrate how to take a food chain and make up the relational rules for each link. On the top of their paper students should draw the diagram of the food chain with arrows ending in the top predator (sun - grass - mouse - snake - hawk). Below that they should make up symbols to represent the quantity of each organism (grass = g, mouse = m, snake = s, hawk = h). Model how to determine a reasonable amount of food each animal will eat in a week and write "rules" below. (Tell students all rules have to be between 2 and 9.) For example, it is probable that a mouse would eat a lot of gradd in a week but unlikely that a hawk would need to eat very many whole snakes. You could write algebraic expression, e.g. link #1: m x 8 = g; link #2: s x 3 = m; link #3: h x 2 = s. Support: In groups, students follow the same steps. I recommend using a photocopied worksheet to guide them in their work (see Download Options).

Model: Demonstrate how to turn the information from the algebraic relationships from step#2 into a representational drawing of a food pyramid. Student Instructions:

1. Draw the top predator at the top of the large piece of paper. Using the example from the Hidden Villa math mysteries, this would be an owl.
2. In the next level down, evenly space a drawing of the prey. In our example this would be two mice.
3. Draw an arrow from each prey going towards the top predator.
4. In the next level down (at the bottom of the page) evenly space the total number of plants the herbivores eat (the answer from the question in step#3). In our example this is 6 rows of sunflower seeds.
5. Draw an arrow from each row of sunflower seeds to the nearest mouse such that each mouse has three arrows pointing to it.

Support: Students work together in their groups to draw the food pyramid for the food chain that they were working on in step#3. Point out to your class that if they have 4 animals in their food chain instead of 3 they will need to plan for an extra level in their drawing. Discussion: Have each group share the drawing of their food pyramid. Then guide a class discussion about what information these drawings give us. What is the relationship between the top predator and the plants in their ecosystem? What would happen to the top predator if half of the plants were suddenly destroyed? Why? - they don't actually eat the plants. (In case of time limitations, guide this discussion at the beginning of the next lesson.)