Packed with visual aids and multiple learning opportunities, an engaging exercise challenges individuals as they explore the role of producers, consumers, and decomposers. After discussing differences between food chains, food webs, heterotrophs, autotrophs, herbivores, and carnivores, they investigate the ecosystem and its complexity as they explore the interdependence of organisms and its impact on survival.  

Concepts

cell biology, biodiversity, consumers, herbivores, carnivores, predator-prey relationships, food chains, food webs

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Additional Tags

science

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Instructional Ideas

• Have learners research the aquatic food chain and how it affects our food consumption on land
• Divide the class into groups and have each group prepare a model of a food web, depicting each organism and how its food habits affect the overall hierarchy

Classroom Considerations

• Allow time for class discussions to ensure each concept is fully understood, due to the relevance of this subject material on upper level biology courses
• The second module in a 9-part series

Pros

• Enhanced visuals makes the content easy to understand, and engages multiple styles of learning
• Presents many questions, which would be great extension activities for learners to perform additional research, hold small group discussions, or have whole-class discussions

Cons

• Document permissions do not allow for printing