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3rd grade · Science · Unit 8 of 8

Matter Moves in Ecosystems

Producers, consumers and decomposers recycle matter.

What your child practices

Practices how matter moves among plants, animals, decomposers and the environment, with Pacific Northwest examples like salmon feeding forests after they spawn.

Arizona Academic Standards learning standard: 3.L2U1.7; 3.L2U1.8 · food chains, and how energy and matter move among living things

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Producers make food. Consumers eat other living things.
  2. Decomposers, like worms and fungi, return nutrients to the soil.
  3. Matter moves around an ecosystem again and again.

Example: Orcas eat salmon. Are orcas producers or consumers? Orcas can't make their own food. They eat other animals. Answer: consumers

Matter Moves in Ecosystems in Arizona

In the Arizona Academic Standards, this is unit 8 of 8 in 3rd grade Science, after Surviving in a Habitat.

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: Arizona Department of Education

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

    In Puget Sound, orcas eat salmon. Orcas are…

    • producers
    • plants
    • consumers
    • decomposers

  2. Question 2

    An animal that eats only plants is a…

    • producer
    • decomposer
    • herbivore
    • carnivore

  3. Question 3

    An animal that eats only other animals is a…

    • carnivore
    • producer
    • decomposer
    • herbivore

  4. Question 4

    Worms help decompose dead leaves into…

    • rocks
    • soil
    • air
    • water

  5. Question 5

    An animal that eats plants and animals is an…

    • decomposer
    • producer
    • omnivore
    • herbivore

  6. Question 6

    Compost turns food scraps into soil because of…

    • producers
    • decomposers
    • sunlight
    • wind

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