What is a Food Chain?

Food Chains - shows the path of food from one living thing to another.

Watch this video about food chains from Brain Pop.

A food chain consists of three main parts:

- producers

- consumers

- decomposers

Producers

In order for plants to grow, they need energy from the sun. All plants must produce, or make their own food. Plants are producers. A producer is a living thing that makes it own food. In order for plants to make their own food, they go through a process called photosynthesis. During photosynthesis, plants use the energy from sunlight to change water and carbon dioxide into sugars. The plant uses the sugars as food fro growth. Lastly, during photosynthesis, plants give off oxygen that both animals and plants need to survive.

An animal that hunts other other animals for food is called a predator. An animal that is hunted for food is called prey.

Consumers

Animals get their energy by eating other living things. A living thing that eats other living things is called a consumer. There are three types of consumers:

1. Herbivore- an animal that only eats plants.

2. Carnivore- an animal that eats other animals.

3. Omnivore- an animal that eats both plants and animals.

Decomposers

Decomposers are organisms that break down dead organisms for food. They get their energy from once-living things. Some examples are:

earthworms
bacteria
mushrooms

Review this website to learn more about food chains.

Activity 2 - Create your own Food Chain

After learning about food chains, its now your turn to create your own.

1. First you will need to think of a food chain that you will create. Pick all of the living things that you will put in the food chain.

2. You will open up your google drive and create a new Lucid Chart.

3. You and your partner will create a Food Chain using shapes, lines, and pictures.

4. Make sure to label the living organisms, tell if they are a producer, consumer, or decomposer.

Here is an example of your activity

FoodChainLucidChart.pdf