Simple Food Chains
Describe how animals obtain their food from plants and other animals, using the idea of a simple food chain, and identify different sources of food
What a learner can do afterwards
- Draw a simple food chain with at least three organisms using arrows to show energy flow
- Explain that food chains always start with a plant (producer) that makes its own food
- Use the terms 'producer' and 'consumer' correctly when describing a food chain
1 · Read
Every plant and animal needs food to get energy. A food chain shows who eats what, one step at a time. It always starts with a plant, because a plant can make its own food using sunlight. We call a plant like this a producer. Animals cannot make their own food, so they eat plants or other animals instead. We call these animals consumers.
A cow eats grass in a field. The grass is the producer, since it makes its own food from sunlight. The cow is a consumer, because it eats the grass to get its energy.
When you look at a food chain, follow the arrow. It always points toward the animal that is eating, showing where the energy goes next.
A food chain always starts with a producer, a plant, and the arrows show which consumer eats next.
More to read
46.1 Ecology of Ecosystems
Every meal starts with the sun. Plants catch sunlight with their leaves and use it to make food. Because they produce their own food, scientists call plants producers.
Animals cannot make food from sunlight, so they must eat. Animals that eat are called consumers. A rabbit munches grass. A fox eats the rabbit. The food chain grass to rabbit to fox shows who eats whom. Draw arrows from the food to the eater to show where the energy flows.
8.1 Overview of Photosynthesis
How does a plant cook food from sunshine? Leaves take in air and roots suck up water. Then sunlight powers the change. The plant turns air and water into sweet food it uses to grow.
This is why every food chain starts with a plant. Without plants catching the sun, there would be no leaves for rabbits and no rabbits for foxes. Producers feed the whole chain.
46.2 Energy Flow through Ecosystems
Energy moves step by step along a food chain. The plant holds energy from the sun. The rabbit gets some of that energy by eating the plant. The fox gets some by eating the rabbit.
At each step some energy is used up to move, breathe, and stay warm. So the eater never gets all the energy from its food. That is why big hunters are rare and plants are many. It takes a whole field of grass to feed a few rabbits, and many rabbits to feed one fox.
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2 · Watch
En anglaisTake it off screen
Where it sits
Where this leads
Jobs that lean on this skill. Follow one to see everything it is built on.
24 questions wait behind this lesson, each with its answer explained. Every answer feeds the sky: stars light as they are learned, and dim when it is time to come back.