My students loved this! We played ECOSYSTEM SPLAT last Friday as part of an introductory lesson for our upcoming ecology unit. The purpose of the
game was to activate student prior knowledge about ecosystems. I intended to post this as a Freebie Friday item, but I decided to take the weekend to spend with my family and not my computer! Anyway...here it is:
Just in case you are interested....
Here is a little more information about how I used this in my classroom: I started my lesson with an Activote
(electronic clicker) survey that asked the kids how confident they were about
having background knowledge for our new unit on ecology. As I predicted, many students rated
themselves very low! I wanted to
encourage them to think more carefully about their elementary science lessons
and other background experiences relating to ecosystems. During the game many students had “ah
ha” moments as they recalled things they knew about the ecosystems. To enhance the game for one of my high
functioning groups, we turned and talked after each round about the ecosystem
that was SPLAT during the game. It
was amazing how many things kids recalled from their grade 3-5 reading and
science experiences! (Way to go elementary
teachers!!) After this 10 minute game, I asked students to define what an ecosystem was…and
they nailed it! Examples do
wonders for helping kids conceptualize science terms. After the lesson, students reassessed their readiness to
start the unit and there were major changes in student responses. We often use games for review, but in
this case it was a great way to activate prior knowledge. I hope you find it as useful as my
students did!
Download the teacher directions and ecosystem clues for FREE at
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