Teacher Background
This activity teaches students 2 things, 1) it reviews the concept of food chains and the major roles of organisms with a food chain and 2) it illustrates the concept of a food pyramid and the transfer of energy from one organism to the next through the food chain. Most students should be familiar with the concept of a food chain and food pyramid from elementary school science, but it is worth at least one class period to thoroughly review these concepts in preparation for more in depth investigations of food webs, ecosystems, and population change.
Food chains are the most simple arrangement of who eats whom assuming that each organism only eats one thing. Of course, in real life this is not the case. Still, it is useful to consider food webs as tangled food chains; therefore, understanding food chains is an essential prerequisite.
The roles that organisms play within a food chain are very well defined. Producers make their own food through photosynthesis. Consumers eat producers or other consumers and may be divided into 4 major categories: herbivores which eat producers, carnivores which eat herbivores or other carnivores, dentritivores (also called decomposers) which recycle the energy from dead organisms to make nutrients available for producers, and omnivores which eat producers and consumers.
Although it is tempting to emphasize that every food chain begins with the sun as the source of energy on which photosynthesis depends, in fact, not all food chains begin with the sun. Organisms near hydrothermal vents at the bottom of the ocean depend on sulfur as the initial energy source. These bacteria use a process called chemosynthesis, taking hydrogen sulfide and oxidizing it, thereby releasing energy. This is typically far more advanced than middle school classrooms although you may wish to allude to the existence of food chains that do not rely on the sun as the initial energy source. For further information, see RESA has a superb website about life at hydrothermal vents.
The concept of a food pyramid adds a level of complexity to the concept of food chains. A producer uses energy from sunlight to grow, reproduce, and survive. Only a small fraction of that energy can be used by a herbivore that eats that producer. Similarly, that herbivore needs to use energy to grow, reproduce, and survive. A carnivore that eats that herbivore does get some energy from that herbivore but only a small percentage. Another way to think of it is to consider how many seeds a plant produces in its lifetime, how many seeds a chicken consumes in its lifetime, and how many chickens a human will consume in its lifetime. Clearly, energy is used and lost at each level of the food chain. Using a food pyramid to illustrate this concept helps students see this visually.
Student Prerequisites
None.