Name:
All living things need food to give them the energy to
grow and move.
Plants have the unique ability to make (manufacture)
their own food through a process called photosynthesis.
For this, they use sunlight, carbon dioxide from the air
and water and minerals from the soil.
All other living things need food manufactured by green
plants to live. A food chain shows how each living thing
gets its food. The different parts of the food chain are like
the links of a chain: if one link is missing, the chain is of
no use until it is fixed. Each part of the food chain is important for the existence of the
ecosystem.
Some animals eat plants and some eat other animals. For example, a simple food
chain links the trees & shrubs, the giraffes (that eat trees & shrubs), and the lions (that
eat the giraffes). Each link in this chain is food for the next link. A food chain always
starts with plant life and ends with an animal.
Producers are the beginning of a simple food chain. Producers are plants and
vegetables. Plants are at the beginning of every food chain that involves the sun. All
energy comes from the sun and plants make food with that energy.
Consumers are the next link in a food chain and they are animals that cannot make
their own food, so they must eat plants and/or other animals. There are three levels of
consumers.
a. Primary consumers are also called herbivores. They are the plant eaters in the chain. It could be a rabbit or a cow.
b. Secondary consumers eat the primary consumers. A mouse
might be a primary consumer and a cat might be the secondary. Secondary consumers are also called ‘carnivores’. Carnivore means “meat eater.”
c. In some ecosystems, there is a third level of consumer called the tertiary consumer (that means third level). These are consumers that eat the secondary and primary consumers. A tertiary consumer could be a wolf that eats the cat and the mouse or a whale that eats the seal that ate the fish.
There are also consumers called omnivores. Omnivores can either be secondary or
tertiary consumers. Humans, monkeys and bears are omnivores.
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GRADE 5
pg 1 of 2
Grade 5 Term 1 – Natural sciences and technology: Life and living; Food chains
What is a food chain?
Most animals are part of more than one food chain and eat more than one kind of
food in order to meet their food and energy requirements.
Food chains and food webs
These two names describe the same series of events that happen when one organism
eats another to survive. ‘Food web’ is a more accurate term used since every
organism is involved with several other organisms. Cows might be food for humans,
bacteria, or flies. Each of those flies might be connected to frogs, microbes, or spiders.
There are dozens of connections for every organism. When you draw all of those
connecting lines, you get a web-like shape.
Individual activity
The following food chains are muddled. Write them in the correct order:
Maize, sun, farmer, egg, hen
g
g
g g
Cow, boy, sun, grass, milk
g
g
g g
Lion, antelope, grass, sun
g
g
g Raptor, sun, mouse, wheat
g
g
g Now make your own food chain
g
g
g g
Group work activity
Work in your group to create a food chain mobile. Use a coat hanger or something
similar, drawings or pictures to create your mobile. Your mobile must clearly show all
things needed to make a complete food chain. Each group must present and explain
their mobile.
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GRADE 5
Grade 5 Term 1 – Natural sciences and technology: Life and living; Food chains
Decomposers (bacteria and fungi) are the last link in the chain.
Whenever something that was alive dies, bacteria and fungi
break down nutrients in the dead matter and return it to the
soil. The producers can then use the nutrients and elements
once it’s in the soil. The decomposers complete the system,
returning essential molecules to the producers.
Most food chains have no more than four or five links. There cannot be too many links
in a single food chain because the animals at the end of the chain would not get
enough food (and energy) to stay alive.