Class Energy Pyramid Activity
The teacher will assign students a part in our class energy
pyramid. We have the following organisms: Grass, Mice,
Snakes, and Hawks. Each level of the pyramid was given a
certain amount of energy to survive, and then some energy to
pass on to the animal that ate it.
1. How did the energy flow?
______________________________________________
2. Where did the snake get its energy from?
______________________________________________
3. When the energy pyramid has only one mouse left, what
happens to the rest of the pyramid? Why does this happen?
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
4. What will happen to the rest of the organisms in the energy
pyramid if the grass dies?
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
Remember, an energy pyramid is THE SAME THING as a food
chain. It just is another way of showing the feeding
relationships between organisms!
Summary:
1. What is a food chain?
____________________________________________
2. In the space below, make your own food chain using these
organisms: algae, big fish, dolphin, small fish. (The arrows
go toward the animal that gets the energy!)
K.Duda2010
Food
Chains
Name_______________________#____
Date______
We will be learning all about food chains! First, we will
begin our educational journey by remembering some
important vocabulary words:
1.
Producer:______________________________
a. Example: ___________________________
2. Consumer:______________________________
b. Example: ___________________________
3. Decomposer:____________________________
c. Example: ___________________________
Your teacher will go to this website:
http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/content/animals/k
idscorner/foodchain/foodchain.htm to help us learn
more about food chains.
Write TWO important things you learned:
1. ______________________________________
2. ______________________________________
Now let’s try “The Food Chain Game” at
http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/content/animal
s/kidscorner/games/foodchaingame.htm
A change in the size of one population in a food chain will affect other
populations. This interdependence of the populations within a food chain
helps to keep the balance of plant and animal populations within a
community. For example, look at the Grassland Biome below. When
there are too many grasshoppers, there won’t be enough grass for all of
them to eat. Many grasshoppers will starve and die. Fewer grasshoppers
means more time for the grass to grow. Fewer grasshoppers also means
less food is available for the rats to eat and some rats will starve to
death. That will lower the populations of the snakes and the hawks.
When there are fewer rats, snakes, and hawks, the grasshopper
population will increase.
The above energy pyramid shows many trees & shrubs
providing food and energy to giraffes. As we go up, there
are fewer giraffes than trees and shrubs and even fewer
lions than giraffes. As we go further along a food chain,
there are fewer and fewer consumers. You must have a lot
of living things at the base because it has to support a few
at the top. Many herbivores are needed to support a few
carnivores. Most food chains have no more than four or five
links. There cannot be too many links in a single food chain
because the animals at the end of the chain would not get
enough food and energy to stay alive. Most animals are part
of more than one food chain and eat more than one kind of
food in order to meet their food and energy needs.
1.
Why do you think we say that plants and animals are
interdependent in an ecosystem?
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
2. Why is it important to have more plants at the bottom and a
few animals at the top of an energy pyramid?
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
3. What will happen to the white sharks if there is a low population of seals?
________________________________________________________
4. What could happen to the phytoplankton if there is a lot of zooplankton?
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
5. What could happen to the rest of the food chain if there isn’t enough algae
in the pond biome?
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________