Every living thing needs energy to stay alive. But where does that energy come from, and how does it get passed around an ecosystem?
🌞 → 🌱 → 🦘 → 🦅
Almost all the energy in an ecosystem starts at the same place: the Sun.
- The Sun sends light and heat energy to Earth.
- Plants can capture the Sun's energy and use it to make their own food.
- That energy then passes to animals when they eat.
A producer is a living thing that makes its own food using energy from the Sun. Producers are nearly always plants.
Examples of producers:
- Grass
- Gum trees
- Banksia flowers
- Seaweed
A consumer is a living thing that cannot make its own food, so it must eat other living things to get energy. Consumers are usually animals.
Some consumers eat plants: rock wallaby, honey possum, caterpillar.
Some consumers eat other animals: wedge-tailed eagle, fox, frog.
A food chain shows how energy passes from one living thing to the next. The arrow means "gives energy to" — so it always points towards the eater.
Your turn to be the scientist!
- In your group, make a paper-chain food chain using the living-thing cards. Each link is one part of the chain.
- Start with a producer. Keep everything in the same habitat.
- Check your arrows point towards the eater.
- Then complete the Building Food Chains worksheet on your own.