Showing the Flow of Energy: Food Chains
Fabulous Food Chains
No matter what you eat, everyone uses the energy in our food to stay alive. But how did that energy get into our food in
the first place? Energy flows between _____________ ___________.
Big Question- What is a food chain?
A food chain is a model that shows how ____________ flows between living things. Animals and plants in the same food
chain living in the same area that scientists call a _________. They interact with each other, day in day out, together
they form a kind of system. They also interact with the non-living stuff around them, like the water, the air, the ground
and the _______.
Food chains show us what eats what in an ecosystem. Everything that is alive is in a food chain, even humans. Most
living things are in more than one food chain.
Investigation- How do you create a food chain?
All of the energy that starts in a food chain starts in the sun. Plants take the energy from the sun’s rays and change it
into ___________ energy. When grass grows it captures energy from the sun to do it and when an animal like a rabbit
eats the grass the energy from the plant is ____________ into the rabbit’s body. If a hawk eats the rabbit, then the
energy from the rabbit is transferred to the hawk. An animal is said to be at the top of the food chain as no other
animals would eat the hawk.
Terminology: Transfer-to move from one place to another
Questions
1. Where does the energy that starts all food chains come from?
______________
2. Plants are an important part of a food chain. Describe the role of plants in a food chain.
3. Write the words of the organisms to describe how energy was transferred between living things in the video.
Literacy challenge: A system is a self-contained collection of different things that work together as a whole.
4. Use the definition of system to create your own definition of the term ecosystem.
Ecosystem is a special system where ___________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________________________