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A Lesson on Breaking the Food Chain Export Lesson as PDF | Save As Favorite
A Lesson on Breaking the Food Chain Grade: Grade 4
Subject: English Language Arts
Created by: Aron Speedy
Lesson Length: More than 3 hours
Keywords/Tags: http://lessonfarm.com/lesson_edit.php?id=1194
Lesson Description: Reading a writing about the food chain and how it affected wildlife in Chicago. Identifying and understanding vocabulary words and using them in a sentence. Discussing key topics and points of the article. Finally writing an opinion and reflection on what the student views as most important about the food chain.
Common Core Standards Covered with This Lesson
  • CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.4.1: Refer to details and examples in a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text.
  • CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.4.2: Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text; summarize the text.
  • CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.4.4: Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including those that allude to significant characters found in mythology (e.g., Herculean).
  • CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.4.3: Know and apply grade-level phonics and word analysis skills in decoding words.
  • CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.4.4: Read with sufficient accuracy and fluency to support comprehension.
  • CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.4.1: Write opinion pieces on topics or texts, supporting a point of view with reasons and information.
  • CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.4.3: Use knowledge of language and its conventions when writing, speaking, reading, or listening.
  • CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.4.4a: Use context (e.g., definitions, examples, or restatements in text) as a clue to the meaning of a word or phrase.
 
     
     
 
Lesson Content: Reading
Instructions: Please read the following reading passage as many times as needed (aloud and silent) before starting to go through other lesson pages. Understanding the content of this passage is very important since the lesson activities will be all about this content. Feel free to print the passage if needed.

Breaking the Food Chain

A food chain is a link between plants and animals. It starts with a plant. The next part of the link is a plant eater. When the prairie plants were uprooted, the animals that depended on them lost their food source. So while the farmers produced more food for people, they broke the animals’ food chain. For example, if a bird needs seeds to eat and the plant is gone, that bird will not be able to survive. And the animals that ate that bird won’t have any food, either. 

A food chain is part of a bigger system called a food web. That web links the living things in an environment. The herbivores in that system depend on the plants. If the plants are removed, the herbivores cannot survive. Herbivores in Chicago include rabbits, squirrels, and many insects. Long ago, they used to include bison and deer. Today you will find some deer in some parts of this area, but you won’t find them in the city. 

When herbivores lose their food, they die out. Then the carnivores, the animals that eat other animals, lose their food, too. Wolves used to depend on the deer for their food. Without deer, the wolves lost their food. Foxes died out, too. They had hunted birds, even catching ducks when they were on the side of ponds. 

Remove just one kind of plant from an environment and you disrupt a food chain. Plow up the land and you destroy the whole system. 

What happened in Chicago? People moved in. They built homes. They built streets. They took away land from nature. Look at this timeline and you’ll see how more and more people moved here. We don’t have the numbers for the bison or deer. But we know that today there are no bison in Chicago, you will only find them at the zoo. 

1880 The population of the city is 503,185; farms continue to expand 

1890 The population of the city is 1,099,850 

1900 The population is 1,698,676 

1910 Factories expand in the city; population is 2,185,283 

1920 The city’s population has grown to 2,701,705 

1930 The city’s population is 3,376,438
 
     
     
 
Task 1: Vocabulary Activity (40 points)
Instructions: Please complete the following vocabulary activity by choosing the correct meaning of each word selected from the passage and use of each word correctly in a sentence.
Vocabulary Questions
Word/Phrase: So while the farmers produced more food for people, they broke the animals’ food chain. | Tier: 3 | Points: 10
Q1 "So while the farmers produced more food for people, they broke the animals’ food chain. For example, if a bird needs seeds to eat and the plant is gone, that bird will not be able to survive." What does the word broke mean in this context?
A. shattered into pieces
B. mentally abused
C. made unstable/ unpredictable *
D. made better
Which sentence uses the word broke in the same context.
A. My friend has now money so he is broke.
B. The egg fell on the floor and it broke.
C. The economy broke when there were more people than jobs. *
D. The mechanic was given praise when he broke the car back to new.
Word/Phrase: uprooted | Tier: 2 | Points: 10
Q2 The author in our story says \"When the prairie plants were uprooted, the animals that depended on them lost their food source.\" WHat does the word uprooted mean?
A. Dug up from the ground * *
B. Turned upside down
C. Eaten
D. Watered
Which sentence uses the word uprooted correctly?
A. If you uproot a cup of water it will spill.
B. Jimmy uprooted a bowl of cereal for breakfast
C. The leaves on the shrubs look dry someone should uproot it.
D. The farmer uprooted his beet crop for harvest and sale to the market. * *
Word/Phrase: ...herbivores cannot survive. | Tier: 3 | Points: 10
Q3 "A food chain is part of a bigger system called a food web. That web links the living things in an environment.The herbivores in that system depend on the plants. If the plants are removed, the herbivores cannot survive." What is an herbivore?
A. A spice plant that eats other plants
B. something/ somone that eats only meat
C. something/ someone that eats only plants *
D. a type of bacteria
Which sentence uses the word herbivore correctly?
A. The largest dinosaurs were herbivores that had teeth only able to eat plants. *
B. Some herbivores like the T-rex are hunters that eat meat.
C. The herbivore bacteria grows in damp wet conditions in the jungle.
D. My basil plant is an herbivore.
Word/Phrase: disrupt | Tier: 2 | Points: 10
Q4 "Remove just one kind of plant from an environment and you disrupt a food chain. Plow up the land and you destroy the whole system." What does disrupt mean.?
A. to make better
B. add more to
C. change
D. fix *
WHich sentence uses the word disrupt correctly?
A. The power outage disrupted the movie when the electricity went out.
B. "Lets disrupt class by sitting quietly during the morning announcements." *
C. I asked the mechanic to disrupt my engine to like new condition.
D. The nightly news was disrupted by another predicted airing.
Standards Covered with This Lesson Activity: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.4.4, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.4.3, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RF.4.4,
 
     
     
 
Task 2: Discussion Activity (30 points)
Instructions: This discussion forum will have questions for students to respond. Read the posted questions, and respond to each. Students are responsible for posting one initial and and two peer responses for each topic.
  Topic Title Replies
Message Only find them at the zoo
"We don’t have the numbers for the bison or deer. But we know that today there are no bison in Chicago, you will only find them at the zoo. " Explain why the writer is refering that the only game animals are in zoos?
Sent on: Jun 27, 2019 by: Aron Speedy		 0
Message food chain is a link between plants and animals.
"A food chain is a link between plants and animals." If plants and animals have a link together where is the line that seperates common civilization from them?
Sent on: Jun 27, 2019 by: Aron Speedy		 0
Message but you won’t find them in the city
"Today you will find some deer in some parts of this area,but you won’t find them in the city ." Why and where is inferred as "this area" but not the city.
Sent on: Jun 27, 2019 by: Aron Speedy		 0
Standards Covered with This Lesson Activity: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.4.1, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.4.2, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.4.4a,
 
     
     
 
Task 3: Writing Activity (30 points)
Instructions: The food chain is a link between plants and animals. Many say it starts with the plant, what do you think is the most important part of the food chain; be the plant and its ability to grow and takeover the land or the destruction caused by cutting trees down for cow farms or humans building cities? Provide and 200 word response.
Standards Covered with This Lesson Activity: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.4.1, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.4.3,
 
     

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