Energy of Ecosystems

Today we got into pairs and reviewed food webs from middle school.  We will take this a step further in creating food pyramids and energy transformation and loss at each tropic level.  Each set of partners was given a different ecosystem and set of organism cards to create a food web today.

The links here are for each of the ecosystems.  Only one is needed per partners.

African Grasslands

Antartic

Forest

Food Web Construction and Manipulation

Purpose

To construct an accurate food web and discuss the implications of species extinction in the web.

Materials

One set of cards per group

Butcher paper to glue cards onto

Glue sticks

Scissors

Marker

Pen/pencil

Procedure

1. Cut out each of the squares representing the animals in the food web.
2. Arrange the cards into a logical food web, being sure to draw the arrows in the appropriate direction showing energy flow.
3. Show your web to me. I will kill off one of the species in your web with the introduction of a parasite.

Parasites

1. On a separate sheet of paper, discuss the impacts of the extinction of this species. How will their death impact the animals who feed on them? How will it affect the species who were preyed upon by them? How might the parasite affect the ecosystem in twenty years? Fifty years?
2. Turn in your web and paragraphs.