Build a food web
🎯 Try it
In grass → rabbit, what does the arrow mean?
Rabbit energy comes from food. Grass uses sunlight to make sugars.
🔎 Worked example
📝 Organism cards: read, point, or cut out
Use these supplied feeding links for this simplified meadow model. Real diets vary by species and habitat.
One organism can have several feeding links.
Write grass → rabbit → fox. Arrows show the direction energy transfers when one organism is eaten, not who chases whom. Grass is a producer. Rabbits are consumers. Add grass → grasshopper → frog → fox to build a simple web. Decomposers break down dead material; nutrients cycle, while energy enters and eventually spreads to the surroundings.
✏️ Practice
💭 Your answer
Which is a producer here?
✅ Quick check
If foxes can eat rabbits and frogs, how should you draw the arrows?
🔑 Answers
🔑 Practice answers
💡 Hint and challenge
💡 Hint: Use three cards first and physically pass an energy token along the arrows.
⭐ Challenge: Explain why a food web gives a better prediction than one isolated chain.
🔎 Challenge answer
A web shows alternative food sources. A fox population might be buffered by rabbits when frogs become less available; a single frog chain misses that possibility. This is a possibility, not a certain prediction.