Food Chains!

Hello Boys and Girls!

Today we will be learning all about food chains!

INTRODUCTION

Think about what a food chain could mean by breaking down the two words:
- Food (what we eat)
- Chain (something that connects things together)
- So food chain can mean things we eat that connect one thing to another.
A food chain shows the path of energy from one living thing to another.
Every living thing needs energy in order to live.
Every time animals do something (run, jump) they use energy to do so.
Animals get energy from the food they eat, and all living things get energy from food.
Energy is necessary for living beings to grow.
In the food chain there are producers and consumers, as well as decomposers.

FOOD CHAINS

A food chain shows how each living thing gets food, and how nutrients and energy are passed from creature to creature.
Food chains begin with plant-life and end with animal-life.
Some animals eat plants, some animals eat other animals, and some animals eat both other animals and plants.
All food chains involve producers (which are plants), consumers (which are herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores), and decomposers (which include fungus and bacteria)

Food Chain: An ordered arrangement of animals and plants in which each feeds on the one below it in the chain.
Food Web: The complex network of food chains in an ecosystem.
Producers: A plant because because they produce their own food! (They do this by using light energy from the Sun, carbon dioxide from the air and water from the soil to produce food - in the form of glucouse/sugar)
Consumers: A plant or animal that gets its energy (food) from other living things.
Decomposers: An organism, like bacteria, that breaks down dead plant or animal matter and releases their nutrients back into the soil.
Herbivores: An animal that eats plants rather than other animals.
Omnivores: An animal that eats BOTH plants and meat.
Carnivores: An animal that eats meat.
Photosynthesis: The cycle of plants and how they make energy!

Nicole Schneider