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Two Orchard Rows, One Sunlit Energy Story

Use harvest-row observations to compare food-energy pathways and model how energy in animal food was once energy from the sun.

Grade 5ScienceInteractive · Printable

Aligned to5-PS3-1

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What’s included

Single worksheet
Auto-graded online
1 NGSS standard
Printable answer key
15 questions
Classroom-ready

Details

Format: Interactive · Printable
Grade: Grade 5
Subject: Science
Question types: Fill in the blank, Multiple choice, Matching, Circle the answer, Sorting, Short answer, Drawing

About this worksheet

What students practice

Students use models to trace energy in animal food back to the sun.
Students compare observed feeding pathways and repair models that omit a step.
Students use observations as evidence for claims about energy in food.

How to use

Read the orchard report together, then have students use the observations to test each model. Ask students to explain their evidence before completing the final model.

Curriculum

NGSS standard covered

5-PS3-1

Use models to show that the energy in animals' food was once energy from the sun.

Preview

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Two Orchard Rows, One Sunlit Energy Story

Build and evaluate models of energy in food from two harvest rows.

Read the harvest report

Read the report and observation table. In these models, an arrow points from the place where food energy came from to the organism that received it.

Two rows during apple harvest

At Cedar Bend Orchard, students compared two places during apple harvest. The south row received direct sunlight for much of the day. The north row stood beside a tall windbreak, so it received less direct sunlight in the afternoon. The apple trees in both rows had green leaves and ripe apples.

The students watched from marked spots without touching the animals. In the south row, they saw a field mouse eat a fallen apple. Later, they saw a red-tailed hawk catch that mouse. In the north row, they saw a blackbird peck at an apple still hanging on an apple tree. They did not record a hawk feeding there.

The students used a science note when making their models: green plants use energy from sunlight to make food. An animal gets food energy when it eats a plant or another animal. The models show where the energy in a particular food began; they do not show how much energy an animal received or how far it moved.

Harvest-row observations
Place | Observation
South row | A field mouse ate a fallen apple.
South row | A red-tailed hawk caught the field mouse.
North row | A blackbird pecked at an apple on an apple tree.
Both rows | Apple trees had green leaves and ripe apples.

Which model best traces the energy in the apple eaten by the south-row mouse back to its original source?