Ecosystems & Food Webs
📋 What it is
In a food web, energy flows from producers (plants) to consumers to decomposers — remove one and others feel it.
🗣️ Coach says
An ecosystem is a web of who-eats-whom. Plants (producers) capture the Sun’s energy; animals (consumers) pass it along; decomposers recycle everything. Pull one thread and the whole web wobbles.
🧠 Memory hook
Energy flows: producers → consumers → decomposers. Everything is connected.
😂 Giggle
What kind of music do planets listen to?
Nep-tunes!
😲 Whoa!
When wolves were brought back to Yellowstone, they changed the rivers — fewer deer meant more trees, which reshaped the whole landscape. One species, huge ripple.
✅ Quick check: If all the plants in a food web died, what happens to the animals?
Say your answer out loud first — then reveal.
They’d starve — plants (producers) are the base of the web; without them, energy stops flowing to everything above.
Producers capture the energy every consumer ultimately depends on.
🪄 Trick question: Are decomposers unimportant because they’re small and gross?
Careful — think it through, then reveal.
No — decomposers recycle dead matter into nutrients plants need; without them the web would clog and collapse.
Decomposers close the loop that returns nutrients to producers.
🧪 Try it! (2 minutes)
Draw a mini food web: Sun → grass → rabbit → fox. Then cross out the grass and trace what happens up the chain.