Teaching Sequence

5 minutes – Part A: Activating Prior Knowledge
15 minutes – Part B: Parts of a Food Chain
35 minutes – Part C: Creating a Food Chain
5 minutes – Reflection

Work through this resource material in the following sequence:

Part A: Activating Prior Knowledge

Step 1. Begin this lesson by inviting students to work in pairs to respond to the following question:

What is a food chain?

Give students several minutes to define their ideas before inviting them to share with the class. Explain to students that the aim of this activity is to explore and share ideas, so all thoughts – whether right or wrong – are welcome.

Through your discussion, clarify that a food chain is a diagram that shows the feeding relationships between plants and animals. A food chain shows the flow of energy between organisms. Plants are at the beginning of the food chain and they get their energy from sunlight. Animals will get their energy from either eating plants or other animals: herbivores get their energy from eating the plants; carnivores get their energy from eating other animals; omnivores get their energy from both plants and animals; and detritivores get their energy from dead plants and animals.

Source: https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/humanities-and-social-sciences/hass/glossary/?letter=E

Part B: Parts of a Food Chain

Step 1. Explain to students that they will be investigating how climate change might be affecting biodiversity in their area. In order to do this, students will first need to understand a way of representing interactions between the species in an ecosystem called a food chain.

Ask your class if anyone has heard of food chains before and what they may already know about how they work.

Step 2. Display the following image to students, explaining that this image shows a a range of organisms that are related to each other through the energy passing between them; however, in this image we can't see the direction or flow of that energy.

Here we can see four organisms you might find in rural environment. We can describe the differences between these organisms in different ways:

As belonging to Kingdom Animalia or Kingdom Plantae
We can classify the animals according to what they eat: the brahminy kite is carnivorous (eating only other animals), the the bobtail lizard is an omnivore (eating animals and vegetation), while the termites are detritivores, eating decaying plant matter. The level of classification referring to diet that is used when creating food chains.

Now display the following image:

This image shows the relationship between these three organisms and the flow of energy. When creating a food chain, you use arrows to show the direction the energy flows. It is important to note that the arrow always points to the organisms that has just consumed something, as this shows the flow of energy. At this point, allow your class to ask any clarifying questions they may have about how to create a food chain.

Step 3. Explain to students that there are a number of relationships between organisms in food chains, including (also included on the Student Worksheet):

Producer – producers are organisms that make their own food (also known as autotrophs). They get their energy from chemicals or the sun and are able to convert this energy into food. Plants are the most common type of producers. Through photosynthesis green plants are able to convert sunlight and water into food. Producers are at the beginning of the food chain; they produce and provide nutrients and compounds for other organisms in the food chain.
Consumer – Organisms that need to eat food to obtain their energy (also known as a heterotroph). Consumers often eat other organisms or organic matter.
Decomposer (or Detritivore) – Organisms who feed on dead or decaying material, and in doing so perform the natural process of decomposition. Examples of decomposers include fungi and bacteria.
Herbivore – An animal that feeds on plants.
Carnivore – An animal that feeds on other animals.
Omnivore – An animal that feeds on both plants and other animals.
Predators – An animal that naturally preys on other animals.

Part C: Creating a Food Chain

Step 1. Invite students to form pairs or small groups (depending how many devices are available). Either, have students use a device with the ClimateWatch app loaded on to it, or a computer/laptop with internet access. Their task is to find one of each of the following animals on the ClimateWatch app or website (under the species tab):

Herbivore
Omnivore
Carnivore

For each of these animals, students need to find:

Where this animal lives (habitat)
What it eats (where possible to the species, otherwise to Class or Order)
What eats this animal (if applicable)

Students may need to undertake further research online in order to complete these tasks. If this is the case, you can project the search strategies for Googling.

Step 2. Once students have completed this task, invite them to create a food chain for at least one of these animals.

For each food chain they choose, students need to design and create a scientific poster that shows (information also available on the Student Worksheet):

All the organisms in this food chain, including both plants and animals
The direction of the flow of energy in this food chain
A map showing where these organisms live
The scientific names or classifications of all organisms in this food chain (at least to Order)
Speculate on how climate change might affect this species.

NOTE: Explain to students that this is an issue that scientists are still working to understand and it is not expected that students will be able to access all the information required to complete this point. However, what is necessary is that students demonstrate their understanding of this issue by justifying their speculations.

Provide students with a copy of the Scientific Poster Assessment Rubrics or project this sheet where students can see it while working. Explaining that this what you will be using to mark their work and allow students to ask any clarifying questions around this rubric.

Step 3. Create a gallery walk of student posters and invite students to assess the posters of at least three of their peers using the Scientific Poster Assessment Rubric.

Remind students to be kind, helpful and specific when providing feedback:

Reflection

Invite students to work independently to answer the following question (also available on the Student Worksheet):

How might studying food chains help us understand the impacts of climate change on biodiversity?

Teacher Reflection

Note: Cool Australia and Earthwatch have also partnered to create citizen science units of work for maths and geography. To further enhance students' learning, consider teaming up with teachers in these complementary faculties to run a cross-curricular project on phenology and citizen science.

Citizen Science - Understanding Food Chains

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