Content Objective: Understand the energy flow in ecosystems, including the role of sunlight as the primary source, chemical energy transfer through food chains, energy sources for autotrophs and chemoautotrophs, and the release of energy through oxidation in cell respiration.
Language Objective: Explain the flow of energy in ecosystems, using appropriate scientific vocabulary such as sunlight, chemical energy, food chains, autotrophs, chemoautotrophs, decomposition, and cell respiration.
Syllabus Details:
C4.2.1- Ecosystems as open systems in which both energy and matter can enter and exit- Students should know that in closed systems only energy is able to pass in and out.
C4.2.2 - Sunlight as the principal source of energy that sustains most ecosystems - Include exceptions such as ecosystems in caves and below the levels of light penetration in oceans.
C4.2.3 - Flow of chemical energy through food chains - "Students should appreciate that chemical energy passes to a consumer as it feeds on an organism that is the previous stage in a food chain."
C4.2.7 - Use of light as the external energy source in photoautotrophs and oxidation reactions as the energy source in chemoautotrophs -Students should understand that oxidation reactions release energy, so they are useful in living organisms. Include iron-oxidizing bacteria as an example of a chemoautotroph."
C4.2.5 - Supply of energy to decomposers as carbon compounds in dead organic matter- Include faeces, dead parts of organisms and dead whole organisms.
C4.2.6 - Autotrophs as organisms that use external energy sources to synthesize carbon compounds from simple inorganic substances -Students should understand that energy is required for carbon fixation and for the anabolic reactions that build macromolecules."
C4.2.9 - Release of energy in both autotrophs and heterotrophs by oxidation of carbon compounds in cell respiration
Activity 1 Energy Flow Diagram
Using the awesome drawing provided by Mr. Covington (see here) show the following:
Label the different types of organisms (heterotrophs, autotrophs, etc) and the trophic levels.
Show using arrows the flow of energy through the ecosystem.
These notes can help also.
Activity 2 - Food Webs
1. Using the worksheet below. Make a list of all the animals and add three terms, one from each row below:
heterotrophs or autotrophs.
consumer, detritivores or saprotrophs.
producer, primary consumer, secondary consumer, tertiary consumer or decomposer.
2. Using the animals in the list create a food web of the animals. You can just use the names. You DO NOT need to print and cut out anything