- Define and explain Simple Food Chains in your own words
- Use key terms such as food chain accurately
- Apply what you have learned to new examples and questions
- Avoid the common mistakes learners make with this topic
This lesson focuses on Simple Food Chains: follow food chains from producer to consumer and see why plants start them all.
Follow food chains from producer to consumer and see why plants start them all.
Key ideas
Food chains
Every food chain starts with a producer, a plant that makes its own food using sunlight. Consumers eat producers or other consumers: a rabbit is a primary consumer, a fox a secondary consumer. The arrows point from the food to the feeder, showing the direction energy travels.
The seven life processes
Scientists remember the seven life processes with MRS GREN: Movement, Respiration, Sensitivity, Growth, Reproduction, Excretion and Nutrition. Every living thing carries out all seven. A car moves but does not grow or reproduce, so it is not alive; a mushroom grows, respires and reproduces, so it is.
Key term — food chain: A diagram showing what eats what, with arrows pointing from the food to the feeder to show where energy flows.
In the food chain grass → rabbit → fox, which is the producer and why?
The grass is the producer, because it makes its own food using energy from sunlight.
Answer: The grass is the producer, because it makes its own food using energy from sunlight.
- Drawing food chain arrows backwards Arrows point from the food to the animal eating it (grass → rabbit → fox), because they show where the energy is going.
- Calling anything that moves alive Wind, flames and cars move but carry out none of the other life processes. Movement alone does not make something alive.
Practice
Yes. A mushroom grows, respires to release energy, and reproduces by releasing spores, so it carries out the life processes.
It carries out none of the seven life processes: it does not grow, respire, sense, reproduce, excrete or take in nutrition on its own.
Any three of: movement, respiration, sensitivity, growth, reproduction, excretion, nutrition.
Example: a garden pond is a habitat for frogs, which need the water to keep their skin moist and to lay their eggs.
Quick check
Which of these best defines "food chain"?
A fish and a fishing rod both come from the water. Which is alive and why?
- Simple Food Chains: follow food chains from producer to consumer and see why plants start them all.
- Food chains: Every food chain starts with a producer, a plant that makes its own food using sunlight.
- habitat: The place where an organism lives, providing the food, water, shelter and space it needs to survive.
- Watch out for: drawing food chain arrows backwards