Food Chains and Food Webs - Balance within Natural Systems
A temperate rainforest in the Olympic National Park.Copyright 2006 Wendy J. Holmgren, Vanderbilt University
With a continued focus on the Sonoran Desert, students are introduced to the concepts of food chains and food webs through a PowerPoint® presentation. They learn the difference between producers and consumers and study how these organisms function within their communities as participants in various food chains. They further understand ecosystem differences by learning how multiple food chains link together to form intricate and balanced food webs. At lesson end, students construct food webs using endemic desert species.
Engineers must first be familiar with the subject matter and environment particulars before they design anything for that environment. This lesson lays the foundations for understanding how natural systems provide for themselves. As students continue in their study of ecological relationships, connections begin to form that enable them to connect ecological relationships to the fundamentals of engineering design.
After this lesson, students should be able to:
- Explain what both a food chain and food web are and how they differ.
- Describe the types of organisms found within a community and how they link to form feeding relationships.
- Construct food chains when provided a list of organisms within a community.
- Construct a food web from separate food chains.
- Explain how they will apply this knowledge to help solve the greater challenge question posed in Lesson 1.