“Making a Food Web”

What is it all about?When you sit down for

breakfast, lunch, or dinner the food you eat provides much needed energy that your body needs to get you through the day. Where did the energy in your food come from? That is what this lesson is all about!

ProducersLiving things are either producers or

consumers. Producers “produce”, or make their own food.

Green plants are the main producers. They produce food by using energy from the Sun to combine water, nutrients from the soil, and gas from the air. This process is called photosynthesis.

Without the Sun’s energy and the producers that use it for photosynthesis, most living things on Earth would not survive.

ConsumersConsumers on the other hand

cannot make their own food. Instead, they depend on producers for food.

For example, grass is a producer. When a cow eats grass, the cow is a consumer.

The cow that munched on the grass was also producing milk.

When you drink a glass of milk or eat a hamburger, you become a consumer too!

Food ChainsProducers and consumers depend on each other in

many ways. Let’s learn about their relationships.Food chains show how on living thing depends on

another living thing for food and how energy flows from producers to consumers. Since producers make their own food, they are the first link in a food chain.

HerbivoresThe next link in the food chain are the

“herbivores” Herbivores only eat plants or producers.

CarnivoresThe third link in the food chain are the

animals that eat the herbivores. These are the carnivores, or meat eaters.

OmnivoresSome animals are “omnivores”. These

animals eat both plants and animals. Omnivores will eat almost anything! Bears, raccoons, and humans are all

omnivores.

DecomposersDecomposers are the last link in a food chain. Their

job is to make sure that none of the energy in an ecosystem is wasted. They break down, or “decompose”, any leftover living material and make energy available for other living things.

Bacteria, fungi, earth worms, are all examples of decomposers.

Food WebsA food chain is a simple way

to learn how energy flows from one living thing to another. But in nature, these patterns of eating are rarely that simple.

Most animals eat a variety of foods and in turn are usually hunted and eaten by a variety of animals. When we show all of the eating patterns in a diagram, we end up with a food web.

Food Chain/Food Web Video Segments http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/

ngexplorer/0309/quickflicks/

http://player.discoveryeducation.com/index.cfm?guidAssetId=3851AF38-CC29-4BC8-8EBD-9585302687F6&blnFromSearch=1&productcode=US