العلوم (بالإنجليزية) الصف الخامس الابتدائي، الأسبوع 5: Writing the hawk’s energy story

The hawk’s story and changing webs

الأسبوع 5 · المحور الأول «الأنظمة»، الوحدة الأولى «العلاقات الغذائية بين الكائنات الحية»، المفهوم 1.2 «انتقال الطاقة في النظام البيئي» (ج) والمفهوم 1.3 «التغيرات في الشبكات الغذائية» (أ): تفسير الطاقة وشبكات تتغير · 3 دروس

Writing the hawk’s energy story

Discovery Education Science P5: Term 1, Unit 1, pp. 67–71

GoalWrite a claim, evidence and reasoning about how a hawk gets energy, and describe an ecologist’s work.

New words

ecologist · a scientist who studies how living things and their surroundings affect each otherevidence · facts or observations that support a claimreasoning · explaining why the evidence supports the claim

Explanation

Now we can answer the big question: how does a hawk get the energy it needs? A good scientific explanation has three parts. The claim is a one-sentence answer, and it should not begin with yes or no. The evidence is what we know from reading, pictures and tests. The reasoning links the evidence to the claim. Here, the evidence is a food chain: grass, mouse, snake, hawk. A hawk cannot make food from sunlight, and plants can. An ecologist is a scientist who studies how living things and their surroundings affect each other. Many ecologists work outdoors, for example counting the kinds of plants growing in a small marked square of ground, or helping to repair damaged habitats.

Part	The hawk’s story
Claim	A hawk gets its energy by eating animals, and that energy began with the Sun.
Evidence	In the chain grass → mouse → snake → hawk, each animal eats the one before it.
Reasoning	The hawk cannot make food from light. Plants can, and the energy passes along the chain to the hawk.

Worked examples

Claim	Good?
Hawks are big birds.	no: it does not answer the question
A hawk gets energy from the animals it eats, which got it from plants.	yes: one sentence, answers the question

Compare two claims. The first is too weak. The second answers the question.

light from the Sun→grass→mouse→snake→hawk

This chart shows the path of energy in the evidence.

Plant	Number
grass clumps	12
daisies	5
thistles	3

An ecologist lays a frame 1 m wide and 1 m long on a patch of ground and counts the plants: 12 grass clumps, 5 daisies and 3 thistles. 12 + 5 + 3 = 20 plants. The grass is the most common.

Class activity

Explain a fox. Write your own claim, evidence and reasoning to answer “How does a fox get its energy?”. Check your claim does not start with yes or no. Then, with a grown-up, mark a 1 m square on grass or in a garden with string or chalk and count the kinds of plants inside it without picking any. Record them in a table.

Practice

What is a claim? What should it not begin with?

Which is evidence for the hawk’s claim? Say the letter.

Letter	Statement
A	Hawks are exciting to watch.
B	A chain: grass, mouse, snake, hawk.
C	I like birds.

An ecologist counts 9 grass clumps, 6 daisies and 4 thistles in a square. How many plants altogether?

Name two things an ecologist might do.