QR Challenge: River Ecosystems

Created using the ClassTools QR Treasure Hunt Generator

Teacher Notes

A. Prior to the lesson:

1. Arrange students into groups. Each group needs at least ONE person who has a mobile device.

2. If their phone camera doesn't automatically detect and decode QR codes, ask students to

• Download a QR reader (e.g. I-Nigma | NeoReader | Kaywa) onto their mobile devices
• Bring these devices into the lesson.

3. Print out the QR codes.

4. Cut them out and place them around your class / school.

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B. The lesson:

1. Give each group a clipboard and a piece of paper so they can write down the decoded questions and their answers to them.

2. Explain to the students that the codes are hidden around the school. Each team will get ONE point for each question they correctly decode and copy down onto their sheet, and a further TWO points if they can then provide the correct answer and write this down underneath the question.

3. Away they go! The winner is the first team to return with the most correct answers in the time available. This could be within a lesson, or during a lunchbreak, or even over several days!

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C. TIPS / OTHER IDEAS

4. A detailed case study in how to set up a successful QR Scavenger Hunt using this tool can be found here.

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Questions / Answers (teacher reference)

Question	Answer
1. 1. Name two places where producers in a river system get their energy.	sun and chemicals in nature
2. 2. What happens to the energy of a producer like algae growing in the river gets eaten?	The energy in the producer moves to the living thing that ate it.
3. 3. How do living things in a river ecosystem get energy if they cannot make their own food?	Consumers get their energy by eating other things.
4. 4. Identify a herbivore, a carnivore, and an omnivore in a river ecosystem.	Answers will vary.
5. 5. Garbage and other forms of pollution can kill wildlife in a river ecosystem. How can this have a direct effect on us?	It can make our drinking water unhealthy.
6. 6. Describe the important role of the decomposers in an river ecosystem.	They return nutrients back to the soil.
7. 7. What would happen to the rivers without decomposers?	Plants would use up all the nutrients from the river floor and the water would be covered in animal wastes and dead organisms.
8. 8. Give an example of a predator and its prey in a river ecosystem.	Answers will vary.
9. 9. Give an example of a parasite and host in a river ecosystem.	Answers will vary.
10. 10. On the back of this handout, diagram a food chain (3 items) and a food web (6 items) of a river ecosystem.	Answers will vary.

 

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