You don’t have to go far to see nature at work – bees visiting flowers, fireflies twinkling in a field, a hawk circling overhead. Less familiar, but right under our noses, are countless tiny animals busily feeding upon leaves or hiding in them from their predators. The signs of leaf-eaters, or leaf-hiders, are easy to find. Peer into any bush or tree and you are sure to see leaves that are chewed, rolled, folded, or sewn up with silk. Snails, aphids, and caterpillars feed upon this bountiful food supply, while spiders and hunting insects prowl amidst the leaves. Looking for signs of leaf-eaters gives us a glimpse of an ecosystem in action. Continue reading Signs of Leaf Eaters – Background
Category: Signs of Leaf Eaters
Signs of Leaf Eaters – Activities
FOCUS: By summer’s end, nearly every leaf bears some signs of feeding by plant-eaters small or large. Some make holes, some scallop the edges, some roll the leaves into tubes. Plants capture energy from the sun and, in turn, produce food for a variety of leaf-eaters. When we watch a leaf-eater feeding on a leaf – or being eaten by a predator – we are seeing the flow of energy from sun to plant to herbivore to carnivore. These interactions are evidence of food chains and webs, important components of every ecosystem.
INTRODUCTION
Objective: To begin to explore and ask questions about leaf-eaters.
Gather a variety of leaves that have bite marks, spots, or irregularities on them. In small groups, ask children to sort leaves according to their observations.
Materials: a variety of leaves with bite marks, spots, or irregularities.
SORTING LEAF-EATER PATTERNS
Objective: To view examples of leaf-feeding, noticing patterns and grouping by shared characteristics.
Give each small group of children a set of photos of leaves showing damage by leaf-eaters (Leaf Photo Set). Ask them to look for patterns of similarities and differences and sort the leaves into several groups by the kind of damage they notice. Continue reading Signs of Leaf Eaters – Activities
Signs of Leaf Eaters – Puppet Show
Leaf-eaters and their Foes
Characters: Benjy Bear, Leafcutter Caterpillar on leaf, Chickadee, Gertie Grass, Grady Grasshopper, Freddie Fox
Benjy Bear Boy, my belly’s so full of berries, I need a nap. I’ll just lie down in the shade of this maple tree. (leaf enters) Why, look at that leaf. I wonder why it has those big holes in it?
Leafcutter They don’t call me a leafcutter for nothing!
Bear A leafcutter? You look like a caterpillar. Continue reading Signs of Leaf Eaters – Puppet Show
Signs of Leaf Eaters – Standards
SIGNS OF LEAF-EATERS ALIGNMENT WITH
NEXT GENERATION SCIENCE STANDARDS
The activities in this unit help children understand the basic concepts in the Disciplinary Core Ideas listed here. You can use the following list as a guide for lesson planning. These Disciplinary Core Ideas are taken from Grade Band Endpoints in A Framework for K-12 Science Education. Additionally, our activities give children opportunities to engage in many of the Science and Engineering Practices and reflect on the Crosscutting Concepts as identified in the Next Generation Science Standards. Continue reading Signs of Leaf Eaters – Standards
Nearby Nature 