Topic 41 — Food chains — blueprint (29 September 2026)
What I need from you: 4 decisions
May the sea's tiny floating plants be called "plants" at Grade 3?
L01's surprising member is a sea chain that starts with living things too small to see. Scientists call them algae or plankton, and most are not true plants. Grade 4's LIF4-020 names "pond algae" as a producer, so the word "algae" arrives next year. This topic says "tiny floating plants, too small to see one by one" so that the rule "the first living thing is a plant, because a plant makes its own food" holds in every case a child meets.
My recommendation: keep "tiny floating plants" here, and let Grade 4 sharpen the word to algae when producers are coined.
Does L03 keep its three removals in one 72-second video?
LIF3-052 is one atom (predict what removing one living thing does). L03 removes the middle link (the rabbits: more grass, hungry foxes), then the top (the foxes: more rabbits, less grass — this is where "removing the top animal helps everything else" is confronted), then the plant (the grass: every animal goes hungry). Three removals fit 145 spoken words, one frame each. The article carries the same three under three subtitles.
My recommendation: keep the three; the top-link removal is the one that breaks the misconception, so it cannot go.
Does "energy" stay in one sentence per lesson — the rule — and out of every question?
your 25 Sep rule binds "energy" to a transfer sentence with a giver, a carrier and a receiver (Topic 29's "the Sun's light carries energy to the slide"). The register's own wording for LIF3-050 is "the energy in every food chain starts as sunlight". The first draft asked eighteen questions with "Where did the energy in this chain start?". The non-author reviewer proposed, and the coordinator ruled, that the lesson rule keeps the one transfer sentence ("The Sun's light carries energy to a plant, and the plant makes its food"), every other line says "the Sun's light lands on the plant, and the plant makes its food", and every question asks the lexicon's own sentence: "Where does this food chain start? — with the Sun". No stem or option says "energy" now.
My recommendation: keep it so; it is Topic 29's form once, and the register's phrase is yours to loosen if you want the question asked with "energy".
Is the type sheet right: nine types, two typed hard, one reorder?
records/TYPES_G3T41.md (rendered course_preview/review/TYPES_G3T41.html). The bank of about fifty is generated only from the types you approve.
My recommendation: approve as listed.
Topic 41 at a glance — 3 lessons
| Lesson | Opens on | Format | |
|---|---|---|---|
| L01 | Every food chain starts with the Sun | Here is Lenka on the wildlife-park bus, right beside the elephant. | video + article |
| L02 | Read the arrows in a food chain | Here is Uri with his poster: grass, a rabbit, a fox. | video + article |
| L03 | Take one living thing out of the chain | Here is the meadow a year later. | video + article |
What this topic is, in five lines
Three short lessons, one per atom, closing the Life strand's feeding story. A student meets the idea that every food chain starts with the Sun (L01) through three chains — leaves and the biggest animal on land, plants too small to see and a herring, grass and a rabbit and a fox — and learns the one term, food chain. Then how to read a food chain drawing (L02): the arrow points from the food to the eater, read "is eaten by"; the Sun keeps its own yellow light arrows because nothing eats it; Uri's wrong-way poster is the non-example. Then what happens when one living thing is taken out (L03): the thing it ate has no eater now, so there is more of it; the thing that ate it has lost its food, so it goes hungry — shown three times on the meadow chain.
One running scene keeps one chain: the meadow (Sun, grass, rabbit, fox) is met in L01, read in L02 and taken apart in L03. Every item uses a fresh chain (a field, a river, a wood, a desert, a pond, a hedge, a shore, a prairie, a lake, a stream, a marsh, a kelp forest).
Applied without asking (rulings you have already given): hard PP100 items are typed (two of nine exemplars, both text entry, both two-step reads off a drawing with a generated accept list); every attached question stands alone with its own drawing; no option bundles a verdict with a reason; every stem a positive question; colour in figures; scene changes spoken with "let's" and never as an imperative; the intro ends on a ready line and a poll and names no lesson; three questions on the summary; a reorder item for chain order (your Topic 2 ruling); light carries energy, in ONE sentence per lesson (the rule, Topic 29's form) and in no question (decision 3); a plant makes its own food in its leaves, using sunlight and water (Topics 32 and 38); one lesson per atom, three lessons; the surprising members first (the elephant, the sea) and the everyday meadow last.
Every food chain starts with the Sun L01
Here is Lenka on the wildlife-park bus, right beside the elephant.
The elephant is the biggest animal on land.
It eats leaves and grass all day long.
'The leaves are its food,' says Lenka.
But what feeds the leaves?
A leaf never eats anything.
So where does this line of food start?
A leaf makes its own food, using sunlight and water.
The Sun's light lands on the leaves, and the leaves make food.
The elephant eats the leaves.
In the sea, a line of food starts with plants too small to see.
Every food chain starts with the Sun.
Video: the Sun appearing at the left of the elephant's chain and its yellow arrows landing on the leaves; the sea chain building from the herring back to the tiny plants; the meadow chain — video and article.
Part 1 — LIF3-050 — State that the energy in every food chain starts as sunlight, captured by a plant
Part 1q — quiz, 11 items
Read the arrows in a food chain L02
Here is Uri with his poster: grass, a rabbit, a fox.
He draws his arrows from the fox to the rabbit, and from the rabbit to the grass.
'The fox eats the rabbit,' he says.
Eshan's poster has the same three pictures.
His arrows point the other way.
Both posters cannot be right.
Which way should the arrows point?
In a food chain drawing, the arrow points from the food to the eater.
Read the arrow as 'is eaten by'.
The grass is eaten by the rabbit, and the rabbit is eaten by the fox.
Uri's arrow says the fox is eaten by the rabbit, and that never happens.
To find what an animal eats, find the arrow that points to it.
Video: 'is eaten by' appearing above each arrow as it is said; the halo moving along the meadow chain; Uri's reversed chain under its question; the garden chain read bare — video and article.
Part 1 — LIF3-051 — Trace who eats what along a drawn food chain, each arrow pointing from the eaten to the eater
Part 1q — quiz, 10 items
Take one living thing out of the chain L03
Here is the meadow a year later.
A new fence runs round it.
The farmer moved every rabbit away.
Tillie visits.
The grass is taller than she has ever seen it.
A thin fox trots along the fence.
Why is the grass so tall, and why is the fox so thin?
Take the rabbit out of the meadow food chain.
The grass has no eater now, so there is more grass.
The fox has lost its food, so it goes hungry.
Take the fox out instead: more rabbits, so less grass.
Take the grass out: every animal in the chain goes hungry.
Video: the rabbit card fading and crossing out, then MORE GRASS and HUNGRY appearing on their words; the fox removal; the grass removal — video and article.
Part 1 — LIF3-052 — Predict what happens to the rest of a food chain when one living thing is removed
Part 1q — quiz, 11 items
Language decisions
- The one coined term: "food chain" (L01). "Producer", "consumer", "predator", "prey", "herbivore" are Grade 4's words and are not said.
- "The Sun's light carries energy to a plant, and the plant makes its food" (Topic 29's form) — once, in L01's rule, the lexicon and the summary; everywhere else "the Sun's light lands on the plant, and the plant makes its food", and every question asks "Where does this food chain start?". Never "light energy", "a form of energy" or "energy is used up" (decision 3).
- A plant "makes its own food in its leaves, using sunlight and water" (Topics 32, 38); it "gets light" from the Sun, never food. Nothing eats the Sun.
- The arrow "points from the food to the eater" and is read "is eaten by". Never "the arrow points at what it eats".
- Living things "go hungry"; there are "more" or "fewer" of them. Nothing is killed on the page; the grass "dies" in a dry summer is the one death, of a plant. "A fox can't live on grass" (foxes do nibble grass and eat fruit — the reviewer's accuracy row).
- Every chain's first card is a whole plant that makes its food (berry bush, desert grass), never a part that makes none (berries, seeds).
- No "gravity", "force", "matter", "lift", "leak" or "flow" anywhere in the topic.
- Openers vary: L01 "Here's Lenka at the zoo…", L02 "Here's Uri with his poster…", L03 "Here's the meadow a year later."; contractions in scripts and headaches; "Now consider…", "Now imagine…" open new scenes.
PP100 type sheet (TYPE_SHEET_ONLY; James's 28 Sep night ruling: hard items are typed)
Nine types, nine exemplars, at most two alone-types per atom; six four-option MCQs (easy and medium), one reorder item (medium) and two typed hard items (both text entry, both read off a drawing with one card crossed out: the living thing there will be more of; the living thing that goes hungry). Coverage table in records/TYPES_G3T41.md.
Figures
40 figures; every food chain is SVG (the Sun first, Topic 29's drawing; the arrows from the eaten to the eater; a computed layout); three photos (an elephant eating leaves, green sea water with its tiny plants, a rabbit in a meadow with a fox at the edge); three cartoons (Lenka on the wildlife-park bus, Uri and Eshan with their posters, Tillie at the fence). Every figure has an IMAGE_BRIEFS entry and an IMAGE_KINDS entry; people and hands are never drawn as glyphs. Item figures carry no label, no halo and no effect chip; a removed card carries only its cross and the GONE chip (the given).
Deliberately not taught
Producers, consumers and decomposers (LIF4-020…022); the dead animal as food for beetles (decomposers are Grade 4's); tracing the energy link by link to the eater (LIF4-012) and back from any meal (LIF5-012); drawing a food chain or web from scratch (LIF5-015); the multi-step ripple through a web (LIF5-017); how a plant makes its food (Grade 5); what the plant's food is; numbers of animals.
This grade’s course architecture — open only if you want the whole map
Skill: course-build → atomise (architecture, step 6b gate) → write-like-james @ acc4fb6
Grade 3 Science — course architecture v3 (James's rulings of 25 September, plus Olivia Mullins's sequencing)
Read this in five minutes. Grade 3 Science is ONE course with a fixed order; nobody picks strands. It arranges the 183 Grade 3 atoms into four strands and forty-two small topics, each with its own mixed practice, summary video and PP100. Nothing below writes a lesson sentence. The atoms stay where they are: the Science Knowledge Graph's 3-5 registers.
Rulings recorded (James, 25 September 2026)
- Strand order: Physics, Matter, Earth & Space, Life. James: "I don't think it matters hugely … Happy to go with 1 Physics 2 Matter 3 Earth and space 4 Life. That works well." Strands may be intermingled later if a reason appears; none does yet.
- Grade 3 is one course. "We're not going to allow students to pick any strand … we need to structure Grade 3 as we think Grade 3 should be structured best." v1's line about students choosing strands was wrong and is gone.
- Topic 1 is the pilot. "That topic 1, I think, works as a good pilot."
- Small topics. "3 atoms is fine for testing. PP100s on quite granular stuff is absolutely fine … A 4-atom topic and a 5-atom topic is great. 9 is too many, really … if something's got 9 atoms, we should be considering splitting it." So sound, soil, fossils and natural resources each stand alone, and every v1 topic of nine or more was split (Card 2). Topics 1 and 2 keep 8 and 7 lessons because James approved Topic 1 as it stands and Topic 2 is one chain about speed; both are flagged as split candidates once their PP100 data arrives.
- Forces opens with Earth's pull and magnets, before the word "force" (Olivia Mullins call, 25 September; James: "I think I'll follow that"). Topics 3 and 4 teach the two non-touching pulls with no talk of forces; Topic 5 coins "force" on both of them and on the hand push together, so the hand push never becomes the whole category. Her two classroom misconceptions (Earth pulls only on your feet; "balanced" is a kind of force) are in the register and the lessons.
- States of matter start with air (Olivia): air takes up space → gases spread → liquids → solids → the sort.
Applied from the earlier rulings: four strands; Motion before Forces before Energy; Scientific Reasoning atoms taught inside the topics that use them; one intro video per strand and per topic, each teaching nothing; one atom, one lesson, both video and article; a summary video before every PP100; PP100 banks of at least fifty items tagged by depth of reasoning; the Forces topics reuse the golden pack; the language rules (Earth's pull, carriers not forms, no "leak" or "lift").
Card 1 — The strands and their order
The call: Physics → Matter → Earth & Space → Life, each with its own intro video and its own end-of-strand test.
| Strand | Topics | Atoms | Why it sits here |
|---|---|---|---|
| Physics | 1-15 | 64 | Motion first: what you can see, before the invisible cause. Energy last: "faster means more energy" needs speed. |
| Matter | 16-21 | 22 (+7 Scientific Reasoning) | Uses the measuring tools and feeds Earth's water cycle in Grade 4. |
| Earth & Space | 22-31 | 41 (+4 Scientific Reasoning) | Weather uses tables and graphs; "the Sun powers Earth" must precede food chains. |
| Life | 32-42 | 43 | Ends the year; leans on Space (the Sun), Forces (Earth's pull) and Matter (properties). |
Scientific Reasoning's 13 atoms are spread through Topics 1, 16, 17, 22, 23 and 25 (Card 4). Total 183 lessons.
Card 2 — The topics
The call: forty-two topics, most of three to six lessons; a mixed mastery practice set, a summary video and a PP100 at the end of every one.
| # | Topic (student-facing title) | Atoms (in teaching order) | Lessons | The big idea it serves |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Physics | ||||
| 1 | Where is it? Did it move? | MOT3-001, 002, 003, 004, 005, 006, 007, 008 (+ SR3-020, 021 inside L07/L08) | 8 | You say where something is with a landmark; moving means its position changed; motions can repeat |
| 2 | Fast and slow | MOT3-020, 021, 022, 023, 024, 025, 026 | 7 | Faster means farther in the same time, or the same distance in less time |
| 3 | Earth pulls things down | FOR3-021, 029, 030, 028, 022 (+ a closing lesson naming gravity) | 6 | Earth pulls every object, all the time, straight down, on every part of it, without touching; a strong enough pull can beat it; the pull's name is gravity (JM 28 Sep 2026; no word "force" yet) |
| 4 | Magnets | FOR3-023, 024, 025 | 3 | A magnet pulls steel without touching; two magnets pull or push; use a magnet to solve a problem (no word "force" yet) |
| 5 | What a force is | FOR3-012, 001, 008, 006 | 4 | Earth's pull, a magnet's pull and your push are all forces; push or pull; on one object; in one direction |
| 6 | Forces that touch, and forces that don't | FOR3-020, 027, 026 | 3 | Some forces act without touching: Earth, magnets, a rubbed balloon; most pushes touch |
| 7 | Pushes and pulls change things | FOR3-002, 003, 004, 005, 007 | 5 | A push or pull starts, stops, turns or squashes; you can test it |
| 8 | Strong or weak: drawing a force | FOR3-009, 010, 011 | 3 | A stronger push makes a bigger change; an arrow shows a force's direction and strength |
| 9 | Balanced forces | FOR3-040, 041, 042, 043, 045 | 5 | Several forces act at once; balanced forces leave motion as it is, still or steady |
| 10 | Unbalanced forces | FOR3-044, 046, 047 | 3 | Unbalanced forces speed up, slow down or turn |
| 11 | Energy: what has it, how it travels | ENE3-001, 002, 003, 004, 005, 034 | 6 | Energy makes things happen; light, sound and electricity carry it; faster means more |
| 12 | Sound | ENE3-030, 031, 032 | 3 | Sound comes from vibration and travels to your ear |
| 13 | Light: sources, straight lines, shadows | ENE3-010, 011, 012, 017 | 4 | Light comes from a source, travels straight, makes shadows, must reach the eye |
| 14 | Light bounces, bends or soaks in | ENE3-013, 014, 015, 016 | 4 | Reflection, refraction, absorption, sorted |
| 15 | Light and heat | ENE3-020, 021, 033 | 3 | Light-givers give heat; rubbing makes heat; light carries energy |
| Matter | ||||
| 16 | Describe it, sort it | SR3-001, 002, MAT3-001, 002, 003 | 5 | Observe with more than your eyes; describe an object by its properties; sort and order |
| 17 | Measuring tools | SR3-003, 004, 005, 006, 007 | 5 | Thermometer, scale, measuring jug; pick the right one; two groups can disagree |
| 18 | Which has more? | MAT3-004, 062, 005, 006 | 4 | More mass, more space, warmer, decided by a measurement; MAT3-062 "everything takes up space" (JM ruling on Olivia's comment, 28 Sep 2026) sits before the space comparison |
| 19 | Sinks, floats, sticks to a magnet: choosing materials | MAT3-007, 008, 060, 061 | 4 | Test a property, then pick the material for the job |
| 20 | Solids, liquids and gases | MAT3-063, 064, 065, 022, 023, 021, 020, 024 | 8 | Air first (Olivia's order): air is something you can feel; it is made of tiny pieces too small to see; so is every kind of matter; air takes up space; gases spread out to fill their space; liquids take their container's shape; solids keep theirs; then the sort with the awkward cases. MAT3-063, 064, 065 were added on 28 Sep 2026 (JM's rulings on Olivia's comments) before MAT3-022 in the chain; eight lessons is over JM's 3–6 size, so the Topic 20 build record (decision 1) proposes a split after MAT3-022 into "Air is something" (4) and "Solids, liquids and gases" (4), renumbering Matter to 16–22, Earth & Space 23–32, Life 33–43 — nothing after Topic 19 is authored, so the renumbering costs nothing now |
| 21 | Heating and cooling | MAT3-040, 041, 042, 043, 044, 045, 046 | 7 | Heating and cooling change the state but it is the same water (split candidate: melting/freezing vs evaporating/condensing) |
| Earth & Space | ||||
| 22 | Measuring the weather | EAR3-017, 018, 019, SR3-010, EAR3-020, SR3-011 | 6 | Three instruments, a weather diary, reading it back |
| 23 | Weather over a season, and far away | SR3-012, EAR3-022, 023, 021, 024 | 5 | A season's records make a chart; the chart predicts; other places differ |
| 24 | Volcanoes, earthquakes, landslides | EAR3-007, 010, 008, 011, 009, 012 | 6 | What each one is, then how it changes the land fast |
| 25 | Dangerous weather | EAR3-013, 014, SR3-022 | 3 | Weather can do damage; a defence holds it back; pick the sensible cause |
| 26 | Soil | EAR3-001, 002, 003, 004 | 4 | Soil is broken rock plus dead things |
| 27 | Fossils | EAR3-029, 030, 031, 032, 033 | 5 | A few dead things last as fossils and tell of the past |
| 28 | Using and conserving natural resources | EAR3-040, 041, 042, 043 | 4 | Everything you own started as a natural resource; some run short |
| 29 | The Sun | SPA3-001, 007, 002 | 3 | A huge glowing ball of gas; a star; the source of Earth's energy |
| 30 | The stars | SPA3-003, 004, 005, 006 | 4 | Stars differ; they look like dots because they are far; telescopes show more |
| 31 | The solar system | SPA3-010, 011, 012, 013, 014 | 5 | Earth orbits the Sun with seven other planets; the Moon orbits Earth |
| Life | ||||
| 32 | Alive or not | LIF3-001, 007, 008, 009, 002 | 5 | Living things grow, feed, move and make more; sort living from non-living |
| 33 | What living things need | LIF3-003, 004, 005, 006 | 4 | Food, water, air and a place that suits them |
| 34 | Backbone or no backbone | LIF3-010, 011, 070 | 3 | Grouping by shared features; vertebrates, invertebrates, arthropods |
| 35 | The five vertebrate groups | LIF3-015, 016, 017, 018, 019, 012 | 6 | Mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian, fish, then the sort |
| 36 | Eggs, body parts and senses | LIF3-013, 020, 027 | 3 | Egg-layers or live birth; body parts do survival jobs; animals sense, then respond |
| 37 | How plants make new plants | LIF3-071, 072, 014, 024 | 4 | Seeds, spores, the sort, the flower's job |
| 38 | Plant parts and their jobs | LIF3-021, 022, 023 | 3 | Roots, stem, leaves |
| 39 | Plants respond | LIF3-025, 026, 028 | 3 | Stems grow to the light, roots grow down; plants respond by growing, animals by moving |
| 40 | Life cycles and family likeness | LIF3-030, 031, 040, 041, 042 | 5 | Every life runs in a cycle; offspring take after their parents but differ |
| 41 | Food chains | LIF3-050, 051, 052 | 3 | Every food chain starts with the Sun; remove a link and the rest changes |
| 42 | Living together and coping with change | LIF3-060, 061, 062, 063 | 4 | Groups, places and seasons decide who survives |
Totals: 183 lessons, 42 practice sets, 42 PP100s (banks of at least 50 items each), 4 strand tests (after Topics 15, 21, 31, 42), 1 end-of-grade test.
Why this grouping
- Every prerequisite edge points backwards in this order. Checked atom by atom in the assembled files; no forward reference.
- Animal topics (33-35) and plant topics (36-38) are separate, as James asked; the plant-versus-animal response contrast (LIF3-028) closes Topic 38 because it needs both sides taught.
- Topics 3 and 4 teach Earth's pull and magnets without the word force; Topic 5 coins it on all three kinds (Olivia's sequence). Topic 8 carries the two force-arrow atoms so Topics 9 and 10 can draw balanced and unbalanced forces.
- Topic 24 puts "what a volcano is" straight before "volcanoes change the land fast", and the same for earthquakes and landslides: what it is, then what it does.
What changes: the folder gets grade3/topicNN_build/ per topic; Topic 1's blueprint is approved; Topic 1 is built first.
Card 3 — Topic 1 is the pilot (approved)
The call: pilot "Where is it? Did it move?" end to end — 8 lessons, an attached question per video, a ten-item quiz after each, mixed practice, summary video, PP100 — before any other topic starts.
- It is the first thing a Grade 3 student meets, so the whole format ladder gets tried where the stakes are lowest.
- It holds a fact, four sorts, two routines and a prediction. Every check type the course needs appears once.
- Its quiz items are drawings of everyday scenes, so the figure pipeline for young grades gets tested too.
- Topics 3 to 10 follow, reusing the golden Forces pack where its lessons match (push or pull, force on one object, strength, direction, more than one force, the balanced and unbalanced lessons).
Card 4 — Scientific Reasoning is taught where it is used
The call: each of the 13 Scientific Reasoning atoms is a lesson inside the topic that first needs it, with its check there; no separate strand, no separate test.
| SR atom | Host topic | Why there |
|---|---|---|
| SR3-001 Observe with more than your eyes; SR3-002 Observation or idea about it? | 16 Describe it, sort it | describing an object's properties is observing |
| SR3-003 Read a thermometer; SR3-004 Measure mass with a scale; SR3-005 Measure the volume of a liquid; SR3-006 Pick the right measuring tool; SR3-007 Two groups, two different answers | 17 Measuring tools | the tools before "which has more?" uses them |
| SR3-010 Record results in a table; SR3-011 Find a value in a table | 22 Measuring the weather | the weather diary is the first table students fill and read back |
| SR3-012 Read a pictograph or bar graph | 23 Weather over a season | the graph before the graphing routine |
| SR3-020 Spot the pattern; SR3-021 Use the pattern to predict | 1 Where is it? Did it move? (inside L07 and L08) | the swing's repeat is the pattern |
| SR3-022 Choose the sensible cause | 25 Dangerous weather | first place students pick a cause for an event |
Card 5 — Tests and benchmarks
The call: a PP100 per topic; a static end-of-strand test per strand (some free response); one static end-of-grade test; all Grade 3 tests are our own banks, seeded from released grade-5 items filtered to Grade 3 atoms.
- No state tests science before grade 5 (D1 ruling). The released STAAR, Florida SSA and AZSCI grade-5 forms give the style and difficulty; items tagged to Grade 3 atoms seed the banks.
- The strand tests fall after Topics 15, 21, 31 and 42.
- The end-of-grade test samples all four strands with free-response items.
What happens next
Topic 1 is built as the first interactive version for James: the topic intro (video script and article), eight lessons each as a video script with animation guidance and an article with figures, one attached question per video, a ten-item quiz per lesson, mixed practice, the summary video script and the PP100 bank. Topic 3 follows, reusing the golden pack.