This is a short term web quest, and as such, should not take more than a few lessons to complete. Make sure you have read all of the definitions on the previous pages, and have tried to think up as many examples for each as you can. This will help you when it comes to taking the quiz, and later, creating your own food chains and webs.

How much have you learned?

A preliminary check to see how much information you have absorbed. This link will open in a new window, so that you can read back through the text where necessary.

QUIZ ME!

Create your own food web.

Click on the following food web, print it out and complete the missing details.

Don’t forget to label whether the animals is a herbivore, detritivore, carnivore, or omnivore.

Create a Food Web

Place the following animals into a food web. Use the style of the last food web as an example.

Lion, impala, grass, cheetah, zebra, dung beetles, wildebeest, hunting dog, vulture, termites.

Hint: You should have one producer, three herbivores, three detritivores, three carnivores. In the links section there is an Australian site which lets you build your own food web. You’ll find it in the Activities section. Check your answers there!

Where is your burger from?

Ever thought about where your food comes from? It doesn’t appear in the supermarket by magic, a lot of effort goes into getting it there.

What’s in a burger?

1. Draw the food chains for a hamburger. Add extra elements such as Detritivores, and higher order consumers.

   • A food chain for the egg on a hamburger may resemble the following-

   Grain -> chickens -> bacteria

   • Or with added elements it may look like the following

   Sun -> grain -> chicken -> fox -> bacteria.

   • Don’t forget to label the arrows. Draw and label all organisms.

   Grain (producer) is eaten by -> chickens (herbivore) dies & is eaten by -> bacteria (detritivore)

   Hint: The following items make up the average hamburger. - sugar, wheat, beef, lettuce, tomato, sesame seeds, egg, cheese, and salt. Cheese and beef come from different types of cows.

2. Now it’s time to make a food web.

   • Consider all of the possible interactions between the food chains you have already made. What else eats the producers in your food chains? What creatures might eat the first order consumers?

   • Draw a preliminary sketch of what your web will look like. Don’t worry if it’s not perfect at this stage.

   • After you draw the initial food web, look and see if it can be simplified, by putting organisms in different place.

   • Redraw your food chain, this time, label the trophic levels. You can do this by labelling each level (first trophic level, second tropic level, etc), or you can label each item, i.e. Producer, first order consumer, second order consumer, third order consumer (or) producer, primary consumer, secondary consumer, tertiary consumer, quarternary consumer.

   Hint: The first item in your food chains will be on the first trophic level. To make a web, put grass, lettuce, grain, grass, wheat, sesame seeds, and tomato on the bottom. They will make up the first trophic level. Draw in your food chains, and link between items that might be consumed by animals from different chains. Take out duplicate animals, not forgetting that there are two different types of cow in your web.

3. Redraw your web until you are happy with it.

   Hint: If you are unsure, show your teacher your progress. They will help you iron out any problems before you create your finished product.

4. Community Relationships: Once you have checked your work with the teacher, use the food web as a guide for listing the relationships between the animals in contains.

   I.e. Birds are competitors with ducks, because they both eat the bugs on the salad.

   Or

   The human eating the duck is a predator prey relationship.

   Hint: This exercise will be easy if you have included many organisms in your initial food chains. Include as many different types of relationships as possible.