Make a food web mobile

Aims:

To use art, designing and making to develop an understanding of a marine ecosystem.

• Through building a mobile students will understand that an ecosystem is a fragile balance that is easily upset.
• Through observational drawing and constructing models students will consider ways in which cetaceans are adapted to their environment.
• Through building and making, students will understand how plant plankton has adapted to be able to capture as much sunlight as possible and how these plants are the basis for the marine food web. Students will understand that ecosystems get their energy from the sun.

The activity:

The main activity is to create a marine mobile and to use the process of making it to learn about marine life and food chains. This activity could be completed in small groups, as a class or individually. Students can create and make objects (including plant plankton, fish and whales and dolphins) to hang on the mobile. The difficulty of the design and construction of these objects can be tailored to suit the abilities of students. This mobile could be made in an hour or so with a creative and organised group or take much longer, even days, if created in a more complex way and used as a starting point for further learning. This activity is designed to be flexible.

Resources:

The complexity of the mobile you wish to make will dictate what resources you will need.

Here are some ideas:

For the mobile: long sticks (from the beach or forest), string, fishing wire, beach- combed objects (e.g. seaweed, shells) hand-made models of small fish (or use fishing lures), card cut-outs or wire models of whales and dolphins and marine animals, models of plant plankton, coloured paper, coloured pens, scissors, needle and thread.

For the wire models (Document 4): Pictures of cetaceans to draw from, pencils, paper, thin wire, pliers.

For the simpler mobile (Document 2) cut-outs: card (or paper), pictures to copy, pencils, paint, scissors.

For the plant plankton (Document 3): green materials e.g. metallic paper, plastic objects, pipe-cleaners, green card and tissue paper and so on.

Instructions:

The background teacher information sheet outlines the history of artistic mobile making. It describes one artist, Alexander Calder, who created sculptures that were called mobiles for the first time.

Document 1 explains how to create a marine mobile and is aimed at higher level Primary or high school students. Document 2 is a simpler version of Document 1 for younger or less able students.

Students will need to make animals and other objects to hang onto the mobile. Document 3 is designed for primary students to provide inspiration on how to make plant plankton models for the mobile. Document 4 explains in detail how to make wire models of animals. These are more complicated and most suited to older or more able students.

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