Biology

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Understanding Food Chains and Food Webs!

• Biology
• High School

Teacher Page
Slide Show
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Teachers Page

• Content Biology
• Grade Level High School
• Creator Lisa Boulden
• Map Standard
• All organisms are part of and depend on a global
  food web
• Use journal for notes and questions

To Title Page
To Slide Show
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What is an Ecosystem?

• Write in your journal
• Ecosystem- the interactions among the populations
  in a community and the communitys physical
  surroundings.
• 2 Types of Ecosystems
• Terrestrial Ecosystems occur on land.
• Aquatic ecosystems occur in water.

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Every species needs a niche!

• Whats a niche?
• Write in your notes
• Niche - is the role a species plays in a
  community. Space, food, and other conditions an
  organism needs to survive and reproduce are all
  part of a niche.
• Lets Discuss
• What role do you think birds play in grasslands?

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Lets Discuss

• Birds live in the grasslands and keep the
  population of insects, such as grasshoppers, down
  because they eat them on a regular basis.
• A grasshopper eats the grass on the grasslands
  and makes its home there.
• This is its habitat, the place where an organism
  lives out its life.

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Food Chain

• Grass Grasshopper Bird

A pathway that food (ENERGY) takes through an
ecosystem! The arrow goes in the direction of
energy transfer!
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IN YOUR JOURNAL

• CREATE A FOOD CHAIN FROM YOUR COMMUNITY!
• REMEMBER THE ARROWS GO IN THE DIRECTION OF ENERGY
  TRANSFER!
• WOULD ANYONE LIKE TO SHARE THEIR FOOD CHAIN WITH
  THE REST OF THE CLASS?

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You can make a food chain for every different
eating relationship in a community. If you
connected all of these food chains you would have
a FOOD WEB!

• Click to see the FOOD WEB of a Grassland!

Click Here!
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Food Web
REMEMBER THE ARROWS POINT TO DIRECTION OF
ENERGY TRANSFER!
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WHAT HAPPENED?In your journal, write and answer
these two questions!

• Lets imagine that mankind has destroyed all of
  the birds on the grassland ecosystem!
• Look back to the food web!
• 1. Could anything happen to the predators (those
  that eat the birds) after the extinction of the
  birds? EXPLAIN YOUR ANSWER PLEASE!
• 2. Could anything happen to the prey (those that
  the birds eat) after the extinction of the birds?
  EXPLAIN YOUR ANSWER PLEASE!

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Something to Think About?

• 1. What is the birds niche in the grasslands?
• 2. Why does every species need to have a
  niche?
• 3. What could possibly happen to a species if its
  niche is altered by mankind? (such as destroying
  trees, building subdivisions, or over-hunting)