Recommended Grade Level: 3rd Grade

Description: In this lesson, students will investigate the role of mosquitoes in ecosystems and food chains by exploring what they eat, what eats them, and how they help transfer energy. This lesson will also discuss the beneficial roles mosquitoes play, such as pollination and serving as a food source. Then of course there is their negative impact on human health, highlighting the need for mosquito control. This lesson is followed by a food chain activity that challenges students to build their own food chain to represent the energy transfer from one Florida Keys organism to another.

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.