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5th grade · Science · Unit 10 of 12

Food Webs & Ecosystems

Plants, animals and decomposers share matter.

What your child practices

Practices how matter moves among producers, consumers, decomposers and the environment in a food web, with examples from the Hudson River, the Great Lakes and Adirondack forests.

New York State Learning Standards learning standard: 5-LS2-1 · the movement of matter among plants, animals, decomposers and the environment

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Producers make food. Consumers eat other living things.
  2. Arrows in a food chain show the flow of matter and energy, from the food to the eater.
  3. Decomposers, like worms, turn dead things into soil.
  4. They return nutrients to the soil for plants.

Example: In the Hudson River, a striped bass eats smaller fish. Is it a producer or a consumer? It eats other living things. Living things that eat others are consumers. Answer: a consumer

Food Webs & Ecosystems in New York

In the New York State Learning Standards, this is unit 10 of 12 in 5th grade Science, after Gravity Pulls Down and before Sun, Stars & Shadows.

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: New York State Education Department (NYSED)

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

    Which moves matter from the environment into living things?

    • Animals breathing out
    • Plants taking in air and water
    • Rain evaporating
    • Decomposers breaking logs

  2. Question 2

    A consumer is an organism that…

    • makes its own food
    • only drinks water
    • is a rock
    • eats other organisms

  3. Question 3

    After salmon spawn and die, their bodies…

    • feed the forest and river life
    • swim to the ocean
    • vanish
    • turn to stone

  4. Question 4

    In a food chain, arrows show…

    • the weather
    • which animal is biggest
    • where animals sleep
    • the flow of matter and energy

  5. Question 5

    What would happen without decomposers?

    • Dead things would pile up
    • Nothing would change
    • Animals would live forever
    • Plants would grow better

  6. Question 6

    In a Great Lakes food web, tiny algae are…

    • decomposers
    • predators
    • producers
    • consumers

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