Teeth, digestion and food chains
Build a real food chain from your garden or park
Can you find every link of a food chain in one small patch outside?
Watch first
Follow energy as it passes from plants to animals along a food chain.
What you need
Tick each one as you find it — 0 of 3 ready.
Stay safe: Put stones and leaves back as you found them. Wash your hands afterwards.
Plan the fair test
- Change: The patch you survey
- Measure: How many living things and links you find
- Keep the same: Same size patch, same amount of looking time
Objectives this evidences
- Construct and interpret a variety of food chains, identifying producers, predators and prey
Do it, one step at a time
Step 1 of 5
- Step 1. Choose a patch about the size of a door: a flower bed, a hedge bottom or a strip of grass.
- Step 2. List every living thing you can see, starting with the plants.
- Step 3. Look under a leaf and a stone for minibeasts, then note any birds nearby.
- Step 4. Draw two food chains from your list, with arrows meaning 'is eaten by'.
- Step 5. Check with an adult or a book that each link really does eat the one before.
What should happen
You should manage plant → minibeast → bird. Producers are always easiest to find.
Think about: Which link was hardest to see, and why might that be?
Write up your result
A sentence or two is enough to save it.
The lessons behind this practical
Each one opens with the same short film, and the film has a written transcript underneath if reading is easier than watching.
Now the quiz for this topic
Questions come from the lessons behind this practical, so nothing is asked that has not been taught.
Quiz
Teeth, digestion and food chains quiz
6 questions from the lessons in this stage. No timer, and you can try again as many times as you like.