Nurse Logs & Systems
This fallen tree can become a home and food source for living things.
What is a nurse log?
Anything that has weight and takes up space is this.
What is matter?
In a fair test, scientists change only one of these at a time.
What is a variable?
A plant that makes its own food is this.
What is a producer?
Mushrooms belong to this group of organisms.
What are decomposers?
A group of parts that interact with one another is this.
What is a system?
Air is a gas made of tiny pieces too small to see. These pieces are called this.
What are particles?
These are the conditions scientists keep the same in a fair test.
What are controlled variables?
An animal that gets matter and energy by eating is this.
What is a consumer?
Decomposers do this to dead organisms and waste.
What is break them down?
One part of a system, such as a fern or mushroom, is this.
What is a component?
Plants get most of the matter they need to grow from these two sources.
What are air and water?
Scientists do these more than once to make results more reliable.
What are repeated trials?
Energy in a grassland food web begins with this.
What is the sun?
After decomposers break down dead material, some matter returns to this.
What is the soil?
Name two living things that could be part of a nurse-log ecosystem.
What are any two valid examples, such as a fern, termite, mushroom, frog, or chipmunk?
Sunlight gives plants this, while air and water provide matter.
What is energy?
A test that changes one variable while keeping other conditions the same is this kind of test.
What is a fair test?
In a food web, arrows point from food to eater and show the movement of these.
What are matter and energy?
Without decomposers, dead material could build up and less matter would return to this.
What is the soil?
Different parts of a nurse-log system affect one another. Scientists say the parts do this.
What is interact?
When a plant’s weight increases as it grows, this shows that the plant has gained this.
What is matter?
To test whether light affects plant growth, name one factor to change and one to keep the same.
What is changing the amount of light while keeping water, plant type, or another condition the same?
A food web is made of many connected examples of these.
What are food chains?
Wild hogs can damage plants by rooting and digging. This can leave plant-eating animals with less food and may affect these animals, too.
What are the predators of plant-eating animals?