Page 31 - Science Coursebook

2.4 Food webs and energy flow

Activity 2.4
Researching a food web

SE You are going to find information that will help you to construct a food web for a
habitat in your country.
Your teacher will help you to choose a suitable habitat to work on.

Here are some points to think about:

• How will you find out the information that you need? Will you do this by
observing the organisms in their habitat? By using reference books or the
internet? Or both of these?
• If you are able to visit the habitat, what observations will you try to make?
• If you are able to visit the habitat, how will you keep safe while you are
collecting information?

You will not be able to include every single species in your food web. A good
number to aim for is between 8 and 12. Make sure there is at least one plant in
your food web, at least one herbivore and at least one carnivore. (A herbivore
is an animal that eats plants. A carnivore is an animal that eats other animals.)
If two or more groups work on the same habitat, you may be able to pool your
results to construct a more complete food web.

Questions
Look at the photograph of the
students studying organisms from
a river.
4 What are they doing to keep
safe? What else should they do?
5 Suggest how they will be able to
identify the small organisms that

they find.
6 If the students want to construct
a food web for the river, what

else will they need to find out?

Summary
• A food web shows how energy is transferred between organisms.
• A food web is made up of many interconnecting food chains.

2 Living things in their environment 29