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4
Research
Preparation time: 30 min
Teaching time: 45 min

Creating food chains

In this unit, students will learn about the nutritional relationships found in the animal world. They will look for differences in food chains from different ecosystems. They will build different food chains and think about what happens if one part of the chain is altered, deciding whether each part is of equal importance.

Format

  • Group work
  • Videos

Age

  • 12+

What

The possible connections with your curriculum

  • Biology

Who

The people who take up the teacher role

  • Teacher

Where

The locations where learning takes place

  • Classroom

With

The community stakeholders to collaborate with

-

Ready for action?

Resources

Web links

Downloadable Resources

Tangible Resources

Cards with examples of ecosystems (e.g. forest, meadow, field, savannah, desert, rainforest) and organisms belonging to each trophic level, double sided sticky tape, paper, 3 strings x 2 m each.

Preparation

Prepare ecosystem and organism cards, gather materials.

Goals, messages & concepts

Specific goals

  • To learn what trophic levels and food chains are.
  • To discover what impact a missing link would have on the entire food chain.

Specific messages

  • An ecosystem is made up of trophic levels.
  • Removing an organism from the food chain impacts the entire ecosystem.

Main terms

  • ecology
  • food chains
  • trophic levels
  • ecosystem

Practices & skills

STEM practices

  • Developing and using models
  • Engaging in argument from evidence
  • Asking questions and defining problems

Soft skills

  • Teamwork and collaboration

Management skills

-

Course of activity

step 1

Provide the students with information about food relationships specific to biodiversity in the local area, using the video and diagram (see Resources) to teach about trophic levels.

step 2

Distribute prepared ecosystem and organism cards, from which students will build food chains. Analyse the results together, using the trophic levels diagram to aid judgment as to whether it was done correctly and why.

step 3

Build a trophic chain of students using the string, paper and tape according to the order of the links in the food chain. Then cut the string in one place and take one individual from the food chain.

step 4

Give students 10 minutes to consider what will happen to organisms belonging to other trophic levels once this element is removed.

  • Is each trophic level equally important?
  • Or is any one the most important?
  • If one species in the food chain is missing, will the others be able to thrive?