Apologia Biology Module 10 – Ecology
Ecology – The study of the interactions between living and non-living things.
There wasn’t anything exciting to do for this module and since the kids get all glassy-eyed, when I lecture more than 10 minutes, I decided to make them do something fun.
Design a Food Web. A Food Web is a more accurate example of feeding relationships among organisms in an ecosystem, than a Food Chain. Working together to make a Food Web is a great way to get the students to see and understand how it all works.
I used the Everglades Food Web as my starting point. This page is copyrighted, so I picked similar free photos from the web. I also printed green arrows.
The students were to place the photos on the window, connect the photos with yarn and place green arrows in the directions the energy is moving. It was more difficult than I expected. Next year, I will plan this activity better.
The yarn was connected between the following organisms:
- producers – produce their own food.
- primary consumers – eat producers
- secondary consumers – eat primary consumers
- tertiary consumers – eat secondary consumers.
Sometimes the the trophic levels (relationship between the organism mentioned above) are changed. For example an eagle is usually a tertiary consumer when it eats a snake; but will change to a secondary when it eats a rodent. A Food Web shows this type of relationships.
All of the Food Webs I looked at on the computer and in other books, the arrows are pointing in the directions the energy flows. However; in the Apologia Biology textbook, the arrows are pointing in the other direction. I have not emailed Apologia to ask them about this.
I know the above looks like an odd Food Web, but it was the best we could do at the time. It was hard planning for this at 11:00pm the night before. LOL
I think the students began to understand the Food Web a little better after this project. I know they had fun making it. 🙂
Check out Sahm I Am’s version of the project.
Here are some helpful links on Food Webs.
APPLIE'S PLACE 
Love the idea of the Everglades Food Web! Did you have the snake eating the alligator? When the secondary eats a tertiary, does that make him a quatrinary? I love this state! I’m planning to do a Florida Food Web and a Favorite Food Web. I’ll put a link to your post on my Module 10 page.
LOL No, the Eagle at the lower left ate the snake. The line is going past the alligator. Next year’s web will be much better than this, because I will plan well in advance…I think. lol
LOL – Just noticed the dog in the laundry basket! Too funny!
Sorry not commenting on the food web but the picture of Popcorn. Poor dog, you really need to buy her a larger laundry basket – lol
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I linked up to your post on my Module 10 post. Didn’t get a picture of our food web for my post! 😦 You’re right it was quite a bit more complicated than it seemed and took more time than I anticipated! We were planning to do 10.1 too, but there was no sun! I think it was a good thing, since we were a bit rushed getting the project done without doing the experiment.
Thanks for linking. 🙂 I’ll go back and link you too.