Prairie food web
This activity was designed as a companion for the music video “Litany of the Prairie.”
Background
A food web is a combination of food chains. Food chains begin with the sun. Green plants get energy
from the sun to make food in the process of photosynthesis. Herbivores and omnivores eat the plants
to obtain energy. Carnivores and omnivores eat other animals for their energy. This is the basic food
chain.
Materials
Pictures of prairie plants and animals
(provided on following pages)
Ball of yarn or string
Tape
Teacher Preparation
Cut apart pictures of prairie plants and
animals (on following pages).
Instructions
1. Have a discussion about food chains
with students.
2. Hand out pictures to the students,
making sure one student has the sun.
Have students tape the picture to the
front of their shirt.
Definitions
Food chain: A sequence of living organisms, illustrating
who eats whom in a biological community.
Food web: An illustration showing how plants, animals,
and other living organisms are connected in many ways to
help them all survive. Food webs contain multiple interconnected food chains.
Producer: A living thing that makes its own food from
sunlight, air, and water.
Herbivore: A living thing whose diet consists of plants;
also called a plant-eater.
Omnivore: A living thing whose diet contains both plants
and animals.
Carnivore: A living thing whose diet consists mainly of
other animals; also called a meat-eater.
3. Have the students make a circle with the student with the sun in the middle. Make sure different
types of animals and plants are scattered throughout the circle. Have each student name their animal
or plant. If an animal, have the student share if they are an herbivore, carnivore, or omnivore.
4. Give the student in the middle the ball of yarn. Holding onto the end of the yarn, have the “sun” toss
the yarn ball to a “plant.” Keeping hold of the yarn, that “plant” them tosses the yarn ball to an “animal”
that might eat it. If possible, that “animal” tosses the yarn to another “animal” that could eat it. Cut the
yarn, explaining that the students have made a food chain.
© 2014 Iowa State University www.waterrocks.org
5. Continue in this manner, beginning with the sun each time, until all students are part of a food
chain. Some will be short food chains, e.g. sun → plant → herbivore, while others may be longer, e.g.
sun → plant → herbivore → omnivore or sun → plant → herbivore → carnivore → carnivore.
6. Discuss the following concepts and questions with the students.
• We’ve been making food chains. What does it look like now? (web)
• What’s the difference between a food chain and a food web? (A food web is made up of
several food chains and is more complicated.)
• Why is the sun holding the most yarn? (All food chains begin with the sun)
7. As a follow-up to the prairie food web exercise, have students choose prairie plants and animals to
depict a food chain. Allow them to draw the animals, use magazine pictures, etc. They should use
arrows in between the plants and animals, pointing towards the organism which is receiving the
energy, as shown below.
sun → purple coneflower → butterfly → prairie frog
Adapted from USDA Ag in the Classroom - Weaving the Web
© 2014 Iowa State University www.waterrocks.org
Sun
Great Horned Owl
Grasshopper
Badger
Sparrow
Prairie Frog
© 2014 Iowa State University www.waterrocks.org
Rabbit
Nighthawk
Butterfly
Fox
Moth
Meadowlark
© 2014 Iowa State University www.waterrocks.org
Beetle
Spider
Black-eyed Susan
Bee
Purple Coneflower
Little Bluestem
© 2014 Iowa State University www.waterrocks.org
Rushes
Purple Clover
Butterfly Milkweed
Wild Iris
Compass Plant
Sideoats Grama
© 2014 Iowa State University www.waterrocks.org