🔬 ScienceGrade 3Lesson 3
← Back↓ Download PDF

Food Chains and Ecosystems

How to use: Download the PDF to print the worksheet. Then use this page to repeat activities and check answers.

Learning Objectives

  • 1Describe how energy passes through a food chain
  • 2Identify producers, consumers, predators, and prey in an ecosystem
📘

Mini Lesson

A food chain shows how energy passes from one living thing to another. It always begins with the sun, which provides energy to plants. Plants use this energy to make food, making them the producers. Animals that eat plants or other animals are called consumers.

Key Vocabulary

Vocabulary
Producer
A living thing (usually a plant) that makes its own food using sunlight.
Consumer
A living thing that gets energy by eating plants or other animals.
Predator
An animal that hunts and eats other animals.
Prey
An animal that is hunted and eaten by a predator.
Food chain
A sequence showing how energy passes from one organism to another.
Ecosystem
A community of living things interacting with each other and their environment.

How a Food Chain Works

  • The sun provides energy for plants to grow.
  • Plants (producers) are eaten by primary consumers (e.g. rabbits eat grass).
  • Primary consumers are eaten by secondary consumers (e.g. foxes eat rabbits).
  • Energy is passed from one organism to the next along the chain.
  • A food web shows multiple food chains linked together in an ecosystem.
💡

Arrows in a food chain point in the direction energy flows — from the organism being eaten toward the one eating it.

Simple Food ChainLinear food chain: Sun provides energy, then Grass (Producer), Rabbit (Primary Consumer), Fox (Secondary Consumer), with arrows between each.A Simple Food ChainSunEnergyGrassProducerRabbit1st ConsumerFox2nd ConsumerEnergy flows from producers to consumersSun → Grass → Rabbit → Fox
A Simple Food WebFood web showing three overlapping chains: grass-rabbit-fox, grass-mouse-snake-eagle, and leaf-caterpillar-bird.A Simple Food WebGrassLeafRabbitMouseCaterpillarFoxSnakeBird
✏️

Exercises

Build each sentence by dragging the words into the correct order.

Sentence 1

Sentence 2

Sentence 3

Sentence 4

Sentence 5

Sentence 6

Pick the best answer.

What is the starting point of every food chain?

What is a producer?

In the food chain: Grass → Rabbit → Fox, what is the rabbit?

What does the arrow in a food chain show?

What is an ecosystem?

Which organism is the prey in the food chain: Fox → Rabbit → Grass?

What is a food web?

What happens to energy as it passes through a food chain?

Which organism is a secondary consumer in: Grass → Caterpillar → Bird?

What would happen to rabbits if all foxes disappeared from an ecosystem?

🎯

Assessment

← Lesson 2Lesson 4 →