Activity 1 – How is a Food Web Organized?
The goal of this game is to complete a food chain with 5 links, including 1 procedure, 1 primary
consumer, 1 secondary consumer, 1 tertiary consumer, and either 1 decomposer or 1 scavenger.
What you need:
Per Group
Set of Habitat cards (Deciduous forest, Freshwater swamp, Tropical rainforest, Desert or Marine)
Habitat board
Southern swamp (burgundy)
Deciduous forest (green)
Tropical rainforest (red)
Desert (gold)
Marine (blue)
Shared
Modeling clay, white stick
String
Scissors
What to do:
Step 1
Pick one member of your group to be the card dealer. The dealer should shuffle the deck of
habitat cards, deal 5 cards to each group of players, and place the remaining cards face-down in
the center of the table. The student pair to the left of the dealer begins play.
Step 2
Draw a card from the top of the pile, place the card in your hand and inspect your cards. The
object is to complete a food chain with 5 links. If you do not have a complete food chain, you
must discard one card from your hand, face-down, next to the draw pile. This is now the discard
pile.
Step 3
Play continues clockwise until one player group has constructed a food chain. If you run out of
cards in the draw pile before this occurs, you may reshuffle the cards in the discard pile and use
this as the new draw pile.
Step 4
When a player group completes a food chain, you should inspect it to be certain that it is a
complete food chain. Play resumes until the remaining player groups have completed food
chains. Even though you have completed a food chain, you should remain with the group and
help to evaluate new food chains as they are formed.
Step 5
When each of the food chains have been made, you should gather around the habitat board for
your card deck. The first players to complete a food chain should place their cards on the habitat
board. They should cut four pieces of string long enough to connect the organisms together into a
food chain. They can use the modeling clay to attach the strings to the cards.
Step 6
You should repeat step 5 for the other players’ food chains. Once the four food chains are
formed, look for organisms from different food chains that can be linked together based on their
trophic levels. Find all possible combinations and connect the organisms with string and
modeling clay, forming a food web for the habitat.
Questions
1. What would happen if the food chains or webs had no scavengers or decomposers?
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2. For most habitats, which description do you think is more accurate – a food chain, or a
food web? Why?
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3. What is a trophic level?
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4. Based on the food web interactions you just determined, why could it be a serious
problem if a consumer organism that had no predators was introduced into the system?
(This sometimes occurs when non-native organisms are released from captivity).
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