Abiotic vs. Biotic

4th grade students recently began their Living Systems unit and have focused on ecosystems. Yesterday we had the opportunity to discuss abiotic and biotic factors in each. To begin the lesson we had written on the board the words biotic and abiotic. Students had 2 minutes to discuss what they thought those words meant. Students were required to give a reasoning to support their answer. Some of the answers included:

• "I think they are opposites because they look that way from how they are spelled."
• "I think they are like antibiotics and have to do with medicine."

After the students had the opportunity to share and discuss their thinking, as well as share their reasoning we watched the video linked below.

Assignment Discovery: Abotic and Biotic Factors

The students were then given the opportunity after watching the video to generate a list of abiotic and biotic factors to write in their science notebooks. We then shared those out as well which allowed for students to add to their list if they need a little more support with this.

Next the students were given pictures, since it was raining, of animals in an ecosystem. Their task was to identify the biotic and abiotic factors in their picture. After they were able to identify the abiotic and biotic factors, they needed to create a short video, using an iPad, explaining what they listed and how they knew it was biotic or abiotic.

Upon completion of their video, students had a QR code at their desk that linked them to a Padlet page. They used an app on their iPad to scan the QR code and upload their video to Padlet.