Ecosystems and Food Webs

Ecosystems and Food Webs

Course overview

This course helps Grade 6 students understand how ecosystems work as connected systems. Students learn the difference between living and nonliving parts, how energy moves through food chains, and how food webs show the many connections inside one ecosystem.

What students will learn

• Define an ecosystem and identify biotic and abiotic factors.
• Explain how habitats affect what can live in a place.
• Trace energy through a food chain from producers to consumers and decomposers.
• Compare a food chain with a food web.
• Read arrows in a food web and explain how changes can ripple through the system.

Lessons

• Ecosystems and Their Parts - Learn what an ecosystem is and how living and nonliving parts fit together.
• Food Chains and Energy Flow - Follow energy from the sun through producers, consumers, and decomposers.
• Food Webs, Balance, and Change - Read food webs, trace energy paths, and think about ecosystem balance.

Parent guide

Help your student connect the science to real life. Ask them to look around the yard, a park, or a photo of an ocean, then name the living and nonliving parts. When you move into food chains and webs, keep asking who eats whom, where the energy starts, and how the system changes when one part changes.

Completion

A student finishes this course when they can explain an ecosystem, describe a food chain, read a food web, and tell how living things depend on one another in a balanced system.