Grades 3 through 5
Food Chains and Movement of Matter
Algae is the producer. Build the whole chain in one sealed bag.
Two bags start identical, both green with algae. One of them also holds brine shrimp. By Day 7 that bag has lost its colour, because the shrimp are grazing the algae as fast as it grows. The green did not vanish. It moved into the shrimp, and the students measured it going.
How the lab meets it
What students do that satisfies the standard
NGSS 5-LS2-1
Standard: Develop a model describing the movement of matter among plants, animals, decomposers and the environment.
What the kit does: The sealed bag is the model, and it is a closed system a student can hold. Algae is the producer, building itself out of light and the air in the bag. Brine shrimp are the consumer, and everything they are made of came through the algae first. Because nothing enters or leaves, students can account for where the matter went rather than guess.
Texas 3.9.B
Standard: Identify and describe the flow of energy in a food chain, beginning with the sun.
What the kit does: The chain is two links long, which is short enough for a third grader to hold in their head and real enough to measure. Sun to algae to shrimp. The ungrazed bag stays green and the grazed one clears, and that difference is the flow made visible. Texas teaches this two years before NGSS asks for it.
Florida SC.4.L.17.2
Standard: Explain that energy is passed from producers to consumers along a food chain.
What the kit does: Students watch the handoff happen rather than read about it. Algae builds itself from light. Shrimp eat the algae and multiply. The Secchi readings drop in the grazed bag while the ungrazed one holds, which is the transfer with a number attached. Florida also carries SC.4.L.17.3 on tracing energy back to the sun, and the same setup covers it.
Free downloads
Our Lesson Plans
Each lesson is one Word file. Teacher pages and answer keys first, then the student pages behind the orange PRINT FROM HERE divider.
What Eats Light? Grades 3 to 5
What it covers: The grazed bag against the ungrazed one, with Secchi readings across seven days showing the green moving into the shrimp.
How it is built: One Word file. Teacher notes and answer keys up front, then the student pages behind the orange PRINT FROM HERE divider.
How Salty Is Too Salty? Grades 3 to 5
What it covers: What happens to the chain when the water changes. Push the salt too far and the consumers go first, which tells you something about the chain that the healthy bag cannot.
How it is built: One Word file. Teacher notes and answer keys up front, then the student pages behind the orange PRINT FROM HERE divider.
Administrator Guide
One guide for the whole elementary program rather than one per lesson. This is the copy to hand a principal or a curriculum director.