Day 5: Food Webs & Ecosystems 🕸️🦉
Preparatory Stage Science | Apex Institute of Maths and Sciences
🎯 1. Concept: Producers, Consumers & Decomposers
In an ecosystem, every living thing has a role based on how it gets its energy.
The Three Roles:
- Producers: Plants that make energy from the sun.
- Consumers: Animals that eat plants or other animals.
- Decomposers: Fungi and bacteria that break down dead things and return nutrients to the soil.
💡 2. Food Chains vs. Food Webs
A Food Chain shows a single path of energy (Grass → Rabbit → Fox). However, nature is more like a Food Web, where many chains are connected.
Interdependence: This means living things depend on each other. If one part of the web disappears, the whole web is affected.
🌍 3. Science in Action: The Apex Predator
The animal at the very top of the food web is called the Apex Predator (like a Tiger or a Hawk). Even though they don’t eat plants, they need plants to survive because the animals they eat (like deer) need plants for food!
📝 4. Lab Task: The Web of Life
Objective: Visualize interdependence.
- Write “Sun”, “Grass”, “Rabbit”, “Fox”, and “Mushroom” on 5 separate cards.
- Use a string to connect them based on who gives energy to whom.
- Observation: Remove the “Grass” card. Notice how the Rabbit and Fox can no longer survive. This shows how energy starts with Producers!
✅ 5. Day 5 Practice Test
Easy
1. Where does all energy in a food web originally come from?
Solution: The Sun provides the energy for Producers to start the web (Part 1 & 4).
Easy
2. Plants are called ________ because they make their own food.
Solution: Producers “produce” energy using photosynthesis (Part 1).
Easy
3. Animals that must eat other things for energy are called:
Solution: Consumers must “consume” plants or animals (Part 1).
Easy
4. What role do fungi and bacteria play?
Solution: They break down dead matter (Part 1).
Medium
5. Multiple connected food chains make a:
Solution: A web shows all the overlapping connections in an ecosystem (Part 2).
Medium
6. What happens if the Producers are removed from an ecosystem?
Solution: Without producers, there is no energy for consumers to eat (Part 4).
Medium
7. An animal at the very top of a food web is the:
Solution: The Apex Predator is at the top of the chain (Part 3).
Medium
8. Interdependence means:
Solution: All parts of an ecosystem rely on one another (Part 2).
Hard
9. Assertion (A): A Hawk is a consumer.
Reason (R): It gets energy by eating other animals.
Reason (R): It gets energy by eating other animals.
Solution: Hawks cannot make their own food, so they must consume others (Part 1 & 3).
Hard
10. Why are decomposers important for Producers?
Solution: Decomposers recycle matter so plants can grow healthy (Part 1).
