1. Do Now: 1) What are decomposers?
Bacteria and fungi that eat dead organisms.
2) Why aren’t vultures or humans decomposers?
We’re not decomposers because only tiny things can be decomposers!
3) Give one example of each of the following:
Herbivore - Horse
Carnivore - Wolf
Omnivore - Bear

2. Hook
What’s happening
in this picture?

3. Food Chains [I do] Food chains eat each-other the sun producers
_____________ are diagrams that show which organisms _______________. All food chains start with ________, then move to __________, and finish with ___________ and then ______________.
Food chains
eat each-other
the sun
producers
consumers
decomposers

4. Food Chains [I do] fewer lost
Each step up the food chain there are ______ animals. (Giraffes eat a lot of grass, and a lion eats hundreds of giraffes over its life time). This is shown visually in an energy pyramid. Because energy is ____ in all transformations animals at the top of the food chain have to eat a lot more than the plants at the bottom.
fewer
lost

5. Food Chains [We do] Grasshoppers Snakes The sun
1. What is the mouse’s prey?
2. What is the mouse’s predator?
3. Where does the energy from the entire food chain come from?
Grasshoppers
Snakes
The sun

6. Food Chains [We do] They get eaten by the decomposer and repeat.
4) What happens after the fish die?
5) Would the phytoplankton be able to survive without the algae?
6) What is the purpose of a food chain?
They get eaten by the decomposer and repeat.
No, they depend on the algae to survive.
To show how energy moves through a ecosystem (what eats what).

7. Do the rest on your own! Food Chains [We do]
7) These organisms are placed in an energy pyramid. Why are there so many plants but so few birds?
Energy is lost (as heat) in
every transaction.
Do the rest on your own!
8) Draw #7 as a food chain:

8. Sneak Preview!__________________
Exit Slip:
1) Why do carnivores at the top of the food chain have to eat so much more than herbivores at the bottom?
2) What is the source of almost all energy on earth?
Homework:
Food Chains
Sneak Preview!__________________
Food webs