Skill: write-like-james @ cca3af6 · the build: write-lesson, write-mcqs, write-video-script, write-intro, write-summary @ cca3af6; the non-author review: review-lesson (Role B and the fix pass; the two cold readers follow), review-questions, review-figures, review-accuracy @ cca3af6
Topic 23 "What an ecosystem is" — your read (8 October 2026)
Skim first
The lessons in teaching order, each with its one rule sentence; then the intro script; then the question types. The review page follows.
The lessons and their rules
| Lesson | Atom | Rule sentence |
|---|---|---|
| L01 What an ecosystem is: living things and the things they use, together | LIF5-001 | All the living things in a place, together. With the things not alive that they use. That makes an ecosystem. |
| L02 Biotic or abiotic: sorting the parts of an ecosystem | LIF5-002 | Alive, or once alive, is biotic. Never alive is abiotic. |
| L03 How a living thing depends on other living things | LIF5-003 | A living thing depends on other living things. For food. Or for a place to live or hide. |
| L04 How a living thing depends on things that are not alive | LIF5-005 | Every living thing depends on things that are not alive. Water, air, sunlight. Soil and rock. |
| L05 How two living things affect each other | LIF5-004 | One eats the other: predator and prey. Both need the same food. Each helps the other. |
The intro script (112 words, about 56 s)
Here's Victor at the pond in the city park, with a notebook. His class is making a list of everything that lives here. He writes down the frogs on the lily pads, the fish under them, and the dragonflies over the water. But the frog sits in water, under the sun, on mud. Do the water, the sunlight and the mud belong on the list too? In this topic, we will look at what a place and all its parts make together, what each living thing needs, and how two living things affect each other. Okay, so are you ready to find out how the pond and its living things fit together?
The question types (from TYPES_G5T23.md)
- Type 1 (easy → hard · MCQ · 001): which sentence about a place's ecosystem is true; why a thing not alive belongs; Willa's claim: the correct reason (hard) — four sentences in one frame / four reasons
- Type 2 (easy, one hard multi · MCQ, one multi · 001): which of four things belongs to the place's ecosystem (three are not alive and not used, or living and far away); the TWO things not alive that belong (multi, hard) — four things
- Type 3 (easy · MCQ · 001): what all of a place's living things and the things they use are called; which of four is an ecosystem — ecosystem / food chain / food web / life cycle; four scenes
- Type 4 (easy, one hard multi · MCQ, one multi · 002): which of four parts of a place is abiotic (or biotic); the TWO abiotic parts (multi, hard) — four parts of one place
- Type 5 (medium · MCQ · 002): the once-alive boundary: which word describes a dead log; which is biotic though not alive now; why a pine needle is biotic; which pair is one biotic and one abiotic — biotic / abiotic / ecosystem / predator; four things; four reasons; four pairs
- Type 6 (easy → medium · MCQ, the FOR4 set · 003): a described pair: what does X depend on Y for — food / a place to live or hide / both / nothing
- Type 7 (medium → hard · MCQ · 003): which living thing does X depend on for food; which sentence is true of a hunt; which sentence says how X depends on another LIVING thing; the one living thing among four things used (hard); depending only for a place to hide (hard) — four living things / four sentences / four things
- Type 8 (easy → hard · MCQ, the NOTALIVE4 set; sentences; one typed · 005): which thing not alive does X depend on; which sentence says how X depends on a thing not alive; which living thing loses the thing it breathed (hard); the one word for what a fish takes oxygen from (typed, hard) — water / air / sunlight / soil; four sentences; four living things; water with child spellings
- Type 9 (easy → hard · MCQ, the WAYS4 set; one multi · 004): a described pair: how do they affect each other; which pair both need the same food; why two bluebirds affect each other; the pair that affects each other the SAME way as a given pair (hard); the TWO pairs where one eats the other (multi, hard) — one eats the other / both need the same food / each helps the other / they do not affect each other; four pairs; four reasons
- Type 10 (medium → hard · MCQ then typed · 004): which animal is the predator / the prey; which pair of words fits; which of four eaters is a predator (hard: the plant-eater boundary); the term produced (typed, hard) — the first animal / the second / both / neither; predator and prey / prey and predator / two predators / two prey; predator or prey with child spellings
Five lessons for five atoms, the first of Living things, on one pond in a city park and the meadow beside it, with Miss Winslow's class and Victor's notebook; the Living things opening video (a park at sunrise) sits in front of the topic intro.
Victor's class lists the frogs, the fish and the cattails and asks whether the water, the mud and the sunlight belong on the list too, so L01 shows each living thing using one of them and coins ecosystem: all the living things in a place, together with the things that are not alive that they use.
Back in class the list is sorted by one question, "Is it alive, or was it once alive?", and the dead cattail stalk goes with the frog, so L02 coins biotic and abiotic (the TEKS words) on the pond's own parts.
L03 shows the frog eating the dragonfly, the heron eating the frog, the fish hiding in the weeds and the blackbird nesting in the cattails: a living thing depends on other living things for food, or for a place to live or hide.
L04 puts a painted turtle on a sunny rock and asks what it is getting from the rock and the sun: every living thing depends on things that are not alive — water, air, sunlight, soil and rock.
The capstone sorts seven meadow pairs, one living thing changing per step: one eats the other (the hawk and the mouse — predator and prey coined here), both need the same food (the hawk and the owl), each helps the other (the bee and the clover); a plant-eater is not called a predator.
The one quoted belief is the register's ("an ecosystem is just its animals"), judged after the evidence; the narrator asks every opening question; no case is lettered; "not alive" and "never alive" throughout, never "non-living".
The non-author review found two things that had to change (L03's rule claimed every living thing depends on others for food, which the cattail refutes; every table was unreadable on a phone) and twenty worth fixing, all fixed; the two cold readers come next.
Questions for James
none
The lessons
Also on the site
Living things opening video, topic intro and poll · summary and three questions · mixed practice · the PP100 bank · the type sheet
After you answer
Nothing waits on you here. The two cold readers read blind/2026-10-08-reviewed/ now (130 items; the twelve changed ids are in its CHANGED_IDS.md); once every key agrees, the picture pass starts on the thirteen photo and five cartoon placeholders, and the seven-video batch at handoff/G5T23/videos/ goes with the Living things sample on your go.
What the review found, and what changed
The non-author review (8 October): two must-fix, twenty worth fixing, three left as simplifications
The biology is right in every lesson line, item and figure: every named pair and dependence was checked (frogs eat dragonflies, herons eat frogs, red-winged blackbirds nest in cattails, painted turtles bask, hawks and great horned owls both take mice, honeybees pollinate white clover, ticks drink blood, pike eat perch …), the Grade 3 and 4 sentences are reproduced word for word, the one claim item names its source, and the ten Grade 4 faults are absent but for one figurative phrase and one tense slip, both fixed.
Fixed: L03's rule, lexicon line, rule card, script, summary beat and summary bullet now read "A living thing depends on other living things in its ecosystem: for food, or for a place to live or hide" (the old "every … for food" was false of the cattail, which L01 had just shown making its own food); every table redrawn through a topic-local drawer at phone-readable size and the seven-row "ways" table replaced by a one-column sorted card (the pairs under their three ways), with the L05 video cues pointing at it; the plant-eater boundary spoken in the L05 video, not only the article; L05's subtitles renamed by pair (two "one eats the other" cases had sat under "Both need the same food"); six items re-scened because they reused a lesson's own case or the attached question's (the desert list → a Florida orange grove; Willa's forest → a mountain; the honeybee → a horse; the gliding hawk → a vulture; the owl and the rat → a spider and a fly; the tortoise's burrow → a groundhog's); the duckweed bank item, which was the sunflower quiz item renamed, now asks where the roots hang (water; the one key change); the snake's sun-warmed road → a rock; the goats' "salt" stem, which named its own answer, → a sentence item on the rock face; the shark and sea lion typed item → a pike and a perch; PP-1's distractors in three shapes; the hermit crab item asks about the shell, not the long-gone snail; the rule-card figures dropped from the five articles (the rule block already prints the words; the cards remain the videos' rule slides); "pulls through" → "survives" in the opener; L01 cut by 28 words and L05 by 12.
Left: the L04 rule's list of five things (read as the list, not as "each on all five"); the tick on the dog sorted as "one eats the other" (the register names three ways; the grades 6-8 name waits); the fox and the rabbit as L05's attached question (Grade 4's sentence reused on purpose). The L02 and L05 article lengths stand with one reason each. Full table: REVIEW_G5T23_2026-10-08.md.
The bank, in brief
59 items in content/G5T23_pp100_bank.py: 51 four-option MCQs, 5 typed words (predator twice, prey twice, water once) and 3 two-of-four selects. Per atom: LIF5-001 10 · LIF5-002 11 · LIF5-003 10 · LIF5-005 9 · LIF5-004 19 (the capstone). Easy 25, medium 20, hard 14, sorted easy to hard and rising with the atom's place. MCQ keys A 18 · B 14 · C 13 · D 6. Ten question types, one exemplar each on the type sheet. The one bank claim is "Willa is wrong. What is the correct reason?" with four single-statement reasons; no verdict-and-reason option anywhere. Every scene is fresh against the lessons, quizzes, practice and recall bank after the six re-scenes (the grep is in the review record).
Gates after the fixes
check_topic.py 0 FAIL, 69 WARN (S46 A = B = C = D = 0; S30 9 typed, 0 fail; S39 0; S44 0) · check_terms.py hits {} · check_g5_articles.py 0 FAIL (364 / 326 / 268 / 301 / 422 words; scripts 147 / 149 / 145 / 148 / 150; intro 112; summary 150) · check_key_tells.py 0 of 127 · check_svg_ids.py PASS · check_lessons.py 0 FAIL, S118 fail=0 · blind bundle re-cut at blind/2026-10-08-reviewed/ (118 mcq, 9 text, 3 multi, 130 held) · batch 7 videos, check_brief.py all ✓ (the standing summary/protected note), key string C B C A A B A B, "strand" 0. Not sent, not committed.