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7th grade · Science · Unit 8 of 16

Food Chains & Energy

Who eats whom, and the energy

What your child practices

Producers, consumers and decomposers, food chains and webs, how energy shrinks as it passes up a chain (about 10% each step), and what happens when part of a chain changes.

Alabama Course of Study content standard: 7.5 · energy flowing and matter cycling through food chains and webs

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Producers make food from sunlight. Consumers eat other living things. Decomposers break down dead matter.
  2. Arrows in a food chain point from the food to the eater.
  3. Only about 10% of the energy at one level passes to the next.

Example: Plants store 1000 units of energy. About how much reaches the rabbits that eat them? About 10% passes on. 10% of 1000 is 100. Answer: 100 units

Food Chains & Energy in Alabama

In the Alabama Course of Study, this is unit 8 of 16 in 7th grade Science, after Heart, Bones & Muscles and before Cycles & Succession.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Alabama State Department of Education (ALSDE)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    Put this food chain in order, from the organism that makes food to the last to eat.

    • 🐸frog
    • 🦅hawk
    • 🦗grasshopper
    • 🐍snake

  2. Question 2

    In a food chain, which organism has the smallest amount of available energy?

    • the top consumer
    • the primary consumer
    • the producer
    • the Sun

  3. Question 3

    Producer, consumer or decomposer? Sort each organism.

    Sort into: 🌿 producer · 🐇 consumer · 🍄 decomposer

    • 🦠bacteria in a compost pile
    • 🦅a hawk
    • 🟢algae in a pond
    • 🍄a mushroom on a log
    • 🐇a rabbit
    • 🍁a maple tree

  4. Question 4

    In a food chain, what do the arrows show?

    • How old each organism is
    • Which animal is larger
    • The direction that energy flows
    • Where each organism lives

  5. Question 5

    How do decomposers help producers?

    • They return nutrients from dead matter to the soil for plants to use
    • They hunt animals that eat plants
    • They provide sunlight
    • They make water for plants

  6. Question 6

    Grass stores 1000 units of energy. About 10% of the energy at each feeding level is passed on to the next. How many units reach the frogs that eat the grasshoppers?

    answer boxunits

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