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ScienceStorytelling

Scratch Ecosystem Food Web Game

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Grades 6-82 sessions (60 min each)Source: Creative Dad Company

Code an interactive Scratch game where players keep a food web balanced, turning ecosystem science into playable storytelling.

Budget levels

Amazon prices checked Oct 9-10, 2026 and may change

Materials links go to Amazon. Prices are estimates and may change. As an Amazon Associate, Creative Dad Company earns from qualifying purchases.

Quick Start

Digital downloads only.

$0 to buy. Printing noted separately.

Student time: one class period, one day.

Teacher prep / build-ahead: separate from student time.

Scale it

The default plan is one class period on a single day.

Scale back: Fit it into a shorter period, use fewer effects, or run a demo instead of a build.

Scale up: Add one extra effect, or spread the share-out across another day.

Ambiance video

Ambiance video coming soon from Creative Dad Studio

  • Yellow and blue markers for the paper modelBorrow or school hasuse what you have

Full Experience

Required materials for the class.

$0 per class (class of about 30, 6 groups).

Student time: one day.

Teacher prep / build-ahead: separate from student time.

Scale it

The default plan is one school day.

Scale back: Fit the build into one period with fewer effects.

Scale up: Spread the work across days, or add more effects.

Total Transformation

The bigger kit, with every optional item included.

$0 per class (class of about 30, 6 groups).

Student time: one day (one session, one-day event).

Teacher prep / build-ahead: separate from student time.

Scale it

The default plan is one session, a one-day event.

Scale back: Shorten the event, or run a demo for a smaller audience.

Scale up: Spread the build and the event across days, or invite a bigger audience.

Choose your version

Every level teaches the same core idea — pick the one that fits your time, budget, and energy today.

Student time: 40 min, one class periodTeacher prep / build-ahead: 10 min$0 to buy. Printing noted separately.One table or a clear section of floorBeginner-friendly

Setup

Print or hand-copy the essential prompt for Scratch Ecosystem Food Web Game, then set out only paper, pencils, and the common or recycled items needed for one test. Use a tabletop representation whenever the original version mentions a room, specialized device, or digital tool; the learning comes from the decisions and evidence, not elaborate scenery.

Activity

  1. Define the central success test in Scratch Ecosystem Food Web Game and make a paper planning sheet for the inputs, actions, and expected result.
  2. Represent the system without electronics by using labeled cards, paper controls, tokens, a ruler, or a student acting as the device; follow the same cause-and-effect rules described in the project.
  3. Run at least three cases, including one difficult or unexpected case, and record input examples, operating rules, predicted outputs, and actual outputs.
  4. Revise one rule, layout, mechanism, or decision after the failed case, repeat it, and explain with the recorded evidence whether the change worked.

Ambiance video

Ambiance video coming soon from Creative Dad Studio

Done when: The group has completed Scratch Ecosystem Food Web Game when it can add a win/lose condition and playtest with a classmate, then narrate what happens when one species is removed and point to the observation, measurement, comparison, or trial that supports its conclusion.

Materials

A computer with internet access (free Scratch account); Yellow and blue markers for the paper model

Shown for the Quick Start version — switch tabs above to see what changes.

Materials links go to Amazon. Prices are estimates and may change.

As an Amazon Associate, Creative Dad Company earns from qualifying purchases.

Steps

  1. Choose an ecosystem (pond, forest, or desert) and list its producers, consumers, decomposers, and nonliving parts (sunlight, air, water, soil nutrients).
  2. Draw a paper model with two kinds of arrows: yellow arrows for energy flowing from the sun into producers and up to consumers (with some lost as heat at each step), and blue arrows for matter (carbon and nutrients) cycling from organisms to decomposers, back to soil and air, and into producers.
  3. In Scratch, create sprites for each organism plus a Sun sprite and a Soil Nutrients variable. Script rules: producers grow only when they get sunlight and soil nutrients; consumers gain energy by eating; when organisms die, decomposers turn them back into soil nutrients.
  4. Add on-screen labels or animated arrows that show energy entering from the sun and leaving as heat, and matter moving in a loop, so a player can see both flows.
  5. Add a win or lose condition and playtest with a classmate. Record what happens to soil nutrients and populations when decomposers are removed and when sunlight is reduced.
  6. Write a short explanation, using your test results, of why matter cycles in the ecosystem but energy flows through it and must keep coming from the sun.

Standards mapped

  • Florida · SC.7.L.15.3

    Explore the scientific theory of evolution by relating how the archaeological record and biogeography provide evidence for evolution.

  • NGSS · MS-LS2-3

    Develop a model to describe the cycling of matter and flow of energy among living and nonliving parts of an ecosystem.

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