Laurie Said:

I need a 30 minute activity for 3grade science?

We Answered:

you can talk about volcanos.

you can talk about the importance of predators.

you can talk about the importance of dealing with agricultural run-off. (good one since it is FFA week or someting) FFA.org

you can play a gamewhere you make 5 groups and you ask one student to be the bad guy. (the invasive species)

say you have 5 different organisms living in an environment (ie: a lake, and the chinese carp)
then the carp (the bad guy) comes in and every times he takes from the 2 groups of food i the environment, he turns those kids into carp representing that the carp breed uncontrollably and take the resurces of the environment. that leaves no food for the competetors (other large fish or species in the environment that hve no defense against invasive species.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasive_sp…
http://www.esa.org/education/edupdfs/inv…
http://biology.usgs.gov/invasive/effects…

eventualy the environment becomes decmated and all that is left is the carp and a dying environment.

the game can be fun, aas the bad gy runs around toouching people on the shoulder, they run arouond touching other people o the shoulder and eventually only the people that can be affected by the touch are left and the carp are all everywhere and there is no food.

if the kids know about a game called "zombie" it is the same thing. if a zombie gets you you become a zombie and there's no going back, but some are immune, and if they don't take the other's first to the safe box (taken by the hand, or with hand on shoulder) they loose the person to the zombie) now instead of zombies, we are using invasive species. tell them tat every time they get touched by a invader, it means that the invader has eaten them and reproduced and that they are not an invader.


let me line this up for you:

lets call it "Invader Species"
describe simply what a species it (living organism- needs an environment- can only reproduce with its own kind, ie: cats and dogs can't make babies)

then describe what an environment is, and tell them about how ph levels are important, and that environmental balance is vital to survival (try to make it easy if they are really young, but if they are already 8-12 then you can start to get complicated.

when an invader species (invasive species formally) finds its way in, they mess everything up, the balance tips to them, and they take over the environment, they grow everywhere, and eventually the environment is either completely changed to support them, or it dies. or by some miracle a invasive species defender is introduced, what they are doing to invaders in Australia is making them only able to reproduce males, that way they will eventually be unable to reproduce (genetic bioengineering gets reproduction to only male)

now for the game and the rules:
5 groups 5 kids per group, and 1 invader.

starts out wiht invader behind the presentation board. say you have 2 groups of lants, 2 groups of mammalian life, but it is a food source, ie feild mice, and one group of predators, a wolf, an eagle, and venemous snakes.

invader comes in, it eats the plants and the feild mice, and multiplying too rapidly for the predators to eat it, not to mention it is too fast for the predator, it takes over the room, and the predators loose. there is a chance the predators can win. if the predators can capture more of the food sources and take them back to the predator safe box, they can win by numbers. you can count them up when everyone has been touched on the shoulder, or taken by hand or shoulder back to the safety box.

when the game is done, everyone relaxes again and you discuss how fast the invaders were and how hard it was (if the predators won) to beat them. then you can go a little more into environments and ecological makeup, showing why the food left behind an invader isnt any good for the predators (in carp it is because they destroy all the life in the bottom of the lake making it impossible for a development of feeding cycles(no bottom life, no middle life, no middle life, no top life) this destroys their competition and they keep eating and breeding.

good luck - the website i provided should describe the science with much more detail

Harry Said:

I need to know what is taught in 3rd grade science?

We Answered:

This might help you!
http://www.internet4classrooms.com/skill…