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Introduction

In this WebQuest, you will learn how producers, consumers, and decomposers interact together to form complex food webs. You will understand the roles of herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores, as well as the relationship between predators and prey. Get ready to become a food chain expert!

Task

You will make a large food web with a group of students in your class by combining your individual food chains.

Process

Part 1 – Basic Components

What is a food chain? Watch this movie to get an idea.

Fill in your worksheet by looking up the following things:

Learn about producers and consumers, and even decomposers. Look at the pyramid on this site. What do you think the differences between a primary and secondary consumers are? Make a prediction. Then, read the first two paragraphs under the heading “Consumers” to learn the definitions of both primary and secondary, and compare them to your guess.

Next, learn the differences between carnivores, omnivores, and

herbivores, and record them on the worksheet.

Learn about predators and prey. Are they producers or consumers? Record the definitions on your worksheet.

Part 2 – Applying the Basics

Now that you are an expert on the members that make up a food chain, fill in the rest of the worksheet. You can use the websites you’ve already looked at to help fill it in.

Play the Food Chain game! Get directions from the teacher page.

Part 3 – Food Chains All Over

There are food chains with all different kinds of animals, all over the world!

Look at these 4 food chains. Find them at the bottom of the page, right under the “Food Chains – Create a Food Web” graphic.

Look at this ocean food chain.

***Put your mouse over each picture and read what it has to say!

Review: Take this quiz on food chains!

Part 4 – Make Your Own

Now it’s your turn to make your own food chain! Practice making one on this website before you make one on paper.

Draw or collage your own food chain onto a bookmark. Your teacher will assign you to either the forest group or the ocean group. Your food chain will be done on your own, because later you will add your chain to your classmates’ and make a food web. Be sure to write which group you are in at the top.

Part 5 – Team Up!

Now, you are going to team up with 3 other members in the class and you are going to make a food web. On a piece of poster board, combine your food chains together as a basis for your web. Remember, in a food web there are some overlapping animals that are connected to more than one animal. Use yarn to show the connections between the animals. Be sure to label each animal and name its role in the food web with a pencil or marker.

Conclusion

Balanced food chains are very important to the way animals and plants interact with one another. Producers always are at the bottom, with large consumers at the top. The relationship between the predators and the prey must stay balanced, or all of the organisms will be affected. Humans, omnivores, are at the top of the food chain and can have a great, either positive or negative, impact on the animals and organisms below them.

fish

Evaluation

Please click on the Teacher Page for grading rubrics, resources, SOLs, and answer keys.

Credits

This WebQuest was created by Kelly Henaghan for Virginia Agriculture in the Classroom. WebQuests are made possible through a grant from Monsanto.

www.agintheclass.org

Last revised: September, 2008