Life In A Creek

Objective: Identify consumers, producers, and decomposers in our creek, and construct a food web diagram. Create presentation to share with student body and community members that will raise awareness and promote conservation.

Materials: Field Microscopes, Mobile Cameras,nets, journals, pencils, food web handout.

Process: After being introduced to the concept of producer, consumer, and decomposer, students will walk to the creek on our property. We will use the materials to investigate life in our local creek, and identify consumers and producers in this ecosystem. We will also identify decomposers. Safety for students and organisms is the number one priority and nothing will be disturbed or collected and taken away, we will use only our observation skills. Cameras will be used to document findings, interesting organisms, and the overall investigation. After locating and journaling about these organisms (include sketches in your journal and important details you observe about each organism), students will work in pairs to construct a food chain and overlapping food chains that would form a food web found within the creek. Decomposers should be included. These will then be transferred to a slide show that will be shown to the community during our annual Family Science Night. We think our community will be very interested in learning about our neighborhood creek and all the life found there. We also hope to spread the word about taking care of this natural resource by eliminating trash that ends up in our creek frequently, and keeping this creek clean.