Food Webs & Energy Flow
📋 What it is
Energy flows through a food web from producers to consumers to decomposers, shrinking each step.
🗣️ Coach says
A food web shows who eats whom. Plants (producers) capture the Sun’s energy; animals (consumers) pass it along; decomposers recycle the rest. Energy flows ONE way and shrinks at each step — which is why big predators are rare. Pull one thread and the whole web feels it.
🧠 Memory hook
Producers → consumers → decomposers. Energy flows one way, shrinking each step.
😂 Giggle
Why did the frog log its observations?
Because it wanted to keep a field journal — ribbit-ing reading!
😲 Whoa!
When wolves returned to Yellowstone, they changed the rivers — fewer deer meant more trees, reshaping the whole landscape. One species, huge ripple.
✅ Quick check: Why are top predators like eagles rarer than the animals they eat?
Say your answer out loud first — then reveal.
Energy shrinks at each step of the web, so each higher level supports fewer animals — top predators are fewest.
The ~10% energy transfer per level limits predator numbers.
🧪 Try it! (2 minutes)
Draw Sun → grass → rabbit → fox. Cross out the grass and trace the collapse up the chain.