5-PS3-1
The Standard
Use models to describe that energy in animals' food (used for body repair, growth, motion, and to maintain body warmth) was once energy from the sun.
Next Generation Science Standards
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students use a diagram or flow chart to trace food energy from the sun to plants and then to animals. They show how animals use that energy.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Students create a diagram or flow chart with arrows from the sun to plants and then to animals. They explain how animals use that food energy for growth, repair, motion, and warmth.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may think animals get energy directly from sunlight or that plants get food from soil. They may also confuse energy transfer with matter moving through a food chain.
How to Assess It
- Exit ticket: Draw and label how sunlight can provide energy for a fox to move, grow, repair its body, and stay warm.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give groups sun, grass, rabbit, and fox cards; students connect them with yarn arrows and label where energy moves.
Ask students to write: How can energy from the sun help a fox run and stay warm?
Run a card-sequencing relay where teams order sun, plant, herbivore, and carnivore cards, then add one body-use label.
Have students choose one lunch item and draw its energy path back to sunlight, including any plant and animal steps.
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Printable 5-PS3-1 Worksheet
A ready-to-print activity worksheet aligned to 5-PS3-1, with an answer key for the teacher on its own page. No account needed.
PDF, US Letter, prints cleanly in black and white.
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Where This Standard Sits
See the whole path on the Physical Science progression map.
What This Unlocks
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Related Standards
- HS-PS3-2
Develop and use models to illustrate that energy at the macroscopic scale can be accounted for as either motions of particles or energy stored in fields.
- HS-ESS1-1
Develop a model based on evidence to illustrate the life span of the sun and the role of nuclear fusion in the sun's core to release energy that eventually reac...
- HS-LS1-5
Use a model to illustrate how photosynthesis transforms light energy into stored chemical energy.
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