Explain to Kids: Food Chains
Every living thing is unique in their own way. Look at your teacher, the trees outside, the animals in the zoo, and the insects on the ground. We look quite different, don’t we? Despite this, all of us have one thing in common. Can you guess what that is?
That’s right, we all need to eat food in order to survive! Animals in the wild often eat other animals; and often, they get eaten too! This
A food chain shows how each living thing gets food, and how nutrients and energy are passed from one creature to another.
How Does a Food Chain Work?
So…why do we need to eat? Besides feeling bored or hungry, we eat food because we need energy to grow, move, and survive. This is true for all living things!
FYI: Even plants need to eat!
Plants “eat” sunlight to gain energy. To find out how, pop over to our Mini Lesson Plan on Photosynthesis! We dwell deep into how plants make their own energy using sunlight, air and water.
Energy flows between living things when they eat or get eaten. Each animal is a link in a food chain. The above is a simple food chain where a barn owl is at the top. Let’s break it down!
Producers — Plants are known as producers. This is because they produce their own food! For this particular food chain, the grass is the producer.
Consumers — Animals are consumers, because they can’t create their own food. Their food can be both animals or plants! The grasshopper, mouse, and owl are all consumers.
Activity: Food Chain Link
This is fantastic hands-on activity for your little ones to better understand food chains! It allows them to pick a habitat of their choice and come up with a food chain based on the residing animals. The mobiles can be hung up in rooms or classrooms where your children’s artwork can be appreciated by all!
Materials needed:
Scissors
Paper
Pieces of string
Coloured pencils or crayons
Cup
Small bowl
Hole puncher
Your creative brainInstructions:
1. Turn the cup upside down on a piece of paper and trace it to get a perfect circle! Repeat this 3 times (or however many organisms you have in your own food chain) and carefully cut them out.
2. In each circle, draw either a producer or a consumer. In the example above, they went with a food chain starting with grass, followed by a butterfly and a frog.
3. At the top of the circle above your artistic drawing, punch a hole and put a piece of string through it.
4. As for the sun, use the bowl to trace out the circle instead of a cup so that it’s slightly larger. Give your sun any facial expression you want! My favourite way to draw a sun is to have it wear a pair of sunglasses.
5. Tie the sun together with the chain of producers and consumers, and voila!
What is a Food Web?
All animals in an ecosystem don’t hunt for the same food every single day. For example, in human context, I might have pasta today and salad tomorrow! Similarly, in the animal kingdom, an owl might catch a mouse one day and a grasshopper the next. Animals, like us, interact with various prey, so a food chain alone might not be enough to represent the complexity of our ecosystems!
When an animal from one food chain interacts with an another from another, this starts to form a food web. A food web is a big, tangled system that includes every plant and animal in a habitat. The food web below is one you’ll find on grassy plains!
Bear in mind that all food chains begin with the sun! Plants (e.g. grasses and grains) “eat” by absorbing the sun’s rays and convert that into energy. When an animal (e.g. rabbit) stumbles upon a large field of grass, it’ll start nibbling to its heart’s content. When rabbits eat the grass, energy is transferred from the grass to the rabbit. If a hungry fox comes along and the rabbit isn’t careful enough, it will make a meal out of the rabbit! Energy is again transferred from the rabbit to the fox. Since no other animal is large enough to take on a fox, it sits at the top of the food web.
What Happens if the Food Chain is Disrupted?
All living things in an ecosystem depend on each other to thrive. If just one species within an ecosystem suddenly goes extinct, it can have grave consequences for the rest of the food web! Similar to how touching one part of a spider web causes the whole thing to vibrate, a change to any of the populations in a food web will affect the whole ecosystem!
Yellowstone National Park
Wolves really do get a bad reputation, especially from the children’s story ‘Three Little Pigs’.
“And I will huff! And I will puff! And I will blow your house down!”
However, they’re not all bad! In fact, they’ve been proven to be lifesavers!
The Yellowstone National Park was established in 1872. Wolves along with other predators, such as coyotes and bears, were hunted regularly. Humans figured that they were helping other animals, like deers and elks, survive by eliminating their predator. In 1926, the last wolf pack at Yellowstone as killed.
Unfortunately, the result of eliminating wolves was not what they thought it would be. Similar to kicking a pebble down a mountain, if the conditions were right, it could trigger an avalanche. Without their natural predator, the elk population boomed and grazed their way across the landscape, killing young bushes and trees. This in turn caused other species like beavers and squirrels to drop in population. As early is the 1930s, less than 10 years after the wolves were gone, scientists were worried about the declining health of Yellowstone.
Luckily, wolves were reintroduced in 1995.
This simple act caused an incredible ripple effect that saved Yellowstone. How, you might ask? Even scientists were amazed at the results.
Today, the park continues to flourish and thrive, all thanks to the wolves. This is a lesson to be learned for many years to come — remove one piece of the food chain and the whole ecosystem might get knocked over.
The Circle of Life
You might think that it’s a little unfair that larger animals higher up in the food chain aren’t being eaten, while they’re munching on the other smaller animals. Not to worry, it all comes together! I’ll let the great king Mufasa take it from here!
Mufasa: “Everything you see exists together in a delicate balance. As king, you need to understand that balance and respect all the creatures, from the crawling ant to the leaping antelope.”
Simba: “But Dad, don’t we eat the antelope?”
Mufasa: “Yes, Simba, but let me explain. When we die, our bodies become the grass, then the antelope eat the grass. And so, we are all connected in the great circle of life.”
You might have heard of poop being used as fertilisers in your neighbourhood garden, and that’s true in the wild too! Decomposers, like insects and fungi, break down what the animals have leftover. This includes their poop, uneaten fruits, and even animal carcasses. As they breakdown matter, this makes the soil rich in nutrients and minerals for plants to grow quickly and healthily. This is how the circle of life continues!
Activity: Decomposing Experiment
To get an idea of what decomposers are up to, try out this simple experiment! Let your kids study decomposition up-close, allowing them to practice observational skills too!
You may never look at your food the same way! Snacking on an apple isn’t just to quiet down your hungry, grumbling tummy. It gives you energy and is essential to your survival!
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FURTHER READING
Photosynthesis
Food chains
Food webs
Yellowstone Park Wolves
