Constructing a Food Web Activity

DIY Pyramid of Numbers Activity

Ecology is the study of how living things on Earth interact with and rely on other living and non-living things in the environment where they live.

Ecology is the study of ecosystems.
Ecosystems describe the network of relations among organisms. Examples of ecosystems include forest ecosystems, grassland ecosystems and desert ecosystems.

Living organisms need energy to survive.
A food chain shows how each living thing gets its food. Some animals eat plants and some animals eat other animals. 
Arrows in a food chain show the direction of energy flow from one organism to the organism that eats it.
Only 10% of the energy in an organism is passed onto the next, this is why food chains a short.

A food web is similar to a food chain but larger, it is a diagram that combines many food chains into one picture. ​

​A pyramid of numbers shows the number of organisms at each trophic level (feeding stage).
The reason for the pyramid shape is that there must always be enough plants to produce food at the bottom. Otherwise, the entire food chain would collapse. 
These pyramids don't consider the biomass of organisms.
The pyramid can be used to figure out how population of a given species can affect another.

Print out a blank pyramid template and allow students to construct their own.
One face for the organism names, one for the energy flow, one describing if they are producers/consumers and one for them to do as they wish.

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