Recommended Grade Level: 3rd Grade

Description:  Students will explore the important role mosquitoes play in Florida Keys ecosystems by investigating what mosquitoes eat, what eats them, and how they help transfer energy through food chains. They will discover both the beneficial roles of mosquitoes, such as pollination and serving as a food source for wildlife, and their impacts on human health, highlighting the importance of mosquito control. The lesson concludes with a hands-on activity in which students build a Florida Keys food chain to demonstrate how energy moves through an ecosystem.

Florida State Academic Standards:

• SC.3. L.15.1 Classify animals into major groups (mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish, arthropods, vertebrates and invertebrates, those having live births and those which lay eggs) according to their physical characteristics and behaviors.
• SC.3.L.17.2 Recognize that plants use energy from the Sun, air, and water to make their own food.
• SC.4. L.17.1 Compare the seasonal changes in Florida plants and animals to those in other regions of the country.
• SC.4. L.17.2 Explain that animals, including humans, cannot make their own food and that when animals eat plants or other animals, the energy stored in the food source is passed to them.
• SC.4. L.17.4 Recognize ways plants and animals, including humans, can impact the environment.
• HE.3.PHC.1.4 Discuss behaviors that avoid or reduce health risks.