Categories on Food Chains
Something that creates its own energy using the Sun (example: plants)
Producer
Where do plants get their energy?
The Sun
What is a decomposer's role in an ecosystem?
It breaks down dead plants and animals
A community of interacting organisms and their enviorment
Ecosystem
Where do dead leaves go?
They get broken down by decomposers
Something that gets its energy from other living things (examples: cows, hawks, etc.)
Consumers
How do animals get their energy?
By eating plants or other animals
What does a decomposer leave behind?
Soil
What does a healthy ecosystem need?
Decomposers, producers, and consumers
What do plants eat?
Water and air
Something that gets its energy from dead plants or animals (example: fungi, earthworms, etc.)
Decomposers
How do decomposers get their energy?
From dead plants and animals
Give an example of a decomposer
Mushrooms, fungi, earthworms, etc.
Why does a healthy pond need decomposers?
To break down dead plants and animals and to produce carbon dioxide
True of false: air weighs something
True
A type of consumer that only eats plants
Herbivore
Track energy from the Sun to a human eating a hamburger
The Sun gives energy to plants. A cow eats plants to get its energy. The human eats the cow to get its energy.
What is mold?
Small mushrooms
Why does a healthy pond need producers?
To turn the carbon dioxide from decomposers into oxygen.
A type of consumer that eats both plants and animals
Omnivore
A type of consumer that only eats animals
Carnivore
Here is a Food Chain: The Sun gives energy to a plant, a mouse eats the plant, a snake eats the mouse, a hawk eats the snake, the hawk dies and a fungus breaks it down. What would happen to this chain if something was covering the Sun?
None of the animals on the chain would be able to get energy
How does a compost bin work?
You put in old food/dead plants and decomposers break that material down into soil.
What would happen to a pond with no producers?
There would be too much carbon dioxide and the fish would die.
Why did dinosaurs go exstinct?
An astroid hit earth and a giant dust cloud covered the sun, blocking it. Plants could not get energy from the sun, animals could not eat those plants, do the animals died.