LESSON 5 – Feeding relationships and Food webs
Aims
To understand the transfer of energy through food chains and webs and their relationship.
Learning Objectives
Pupils should Know/be able to:
3/5a - that animals have features which are adaptations against predators
3/5b - that animals are adapted to their particular food source
3/5c - that all the organisms in a habitat can be linked together in food webs
3/5d - that food webs are made up of a number of food chains which start with plants
3/5e - that arrows in a food chain represent energy transfer
3/5f – focus of accurate use of scientific vocabulary (HSW)
POSSIBLE ACTIVITIES
Activity 1 Objectives 3/5a, 3/5b
Split class into small groups and provide with sugar paper – get pupils to draw down the middle and label at
the top of one column Predator and the other Prey.
Get pupils to describe how the predators are adapted for finding, catching and killing their prey using an
OHP and U3.5T1 Predator Images. Ideas should include predators may have eyes forward, acute vision and
sense of smell, sharp claws/talons/beaks for piercing and tearing, may ambush or hunt by stealth.
Next get pupils to describe how the prey species are adapted for detecting and avoiding predators, U3.5T2
Prey Images. Ideas should include: prey may have eyes at the side, acute hearing and sense of smell, be
easily startled, be nocturnal, camouflaged.
Through class discussion, list the most obvious features and get pupils to put these into a table in their books.
Activity 2 Objectives
Generate student discussion on meadowland or woodland habitats, and challenge them to make as many food
chains as they can. Ask them to identify producers, consumers, herbivores and carnivores. Explain the
direction of the arrows in the food chain and relate to energy transfer, with the Sun as the ultimate source of
energy. Ask pupils to write a sentence about each food chain, using links of cause, eg so, because, since.
Spectrum Biology p34 for guidance.
Activity 3 Objectives 3/5c, 3/5d, 3/5e
Ask pupils to think of examples of animals that occur in more than one food chain and to explain what this
shows about their food sources. Show pupils a food web p35 Spectrum Biology and explain that it is a more
accurate representation of feeding relationships.
Help pupils use the food chains they have generated to construct a food web for display.
Establish with pupils that food webs, food chains and terms, eg predator and prey are ways of describing
feeding relationships
Risk Assessment.
None
Suggested Homework Tasks
Finish food web display and write the definitions of the keyword used today: U3.5W1 Feeding relationships
and food web keywords.
Resources: Lesson 5
Activity
1
2
3
Hwk
Resources required
OHP
Newsprint paper and Marker pens
U3.5T1 Predator Images
U3.5T2 Prey Images
Spectrum Biology
A4 paper and crayons
U3.5W1 Feeding relationships and food web keywords.