• Background Info for Students (or as Word Doc)

What are Food Chains & Food Webs (The Science of Living Things) by Bobbie Kalman ISBN: 978-0865058880

Secrets of the Garden: Food Chains and the Food Web in Our Backyard by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld ISBN: 978-0385753647

• Review the Habitat Lab Rules with students before going outside.

Procedure
Outdoor Discovery:

1. Students explore the Habitat Lab to create a food web on their activity page with plants and animals they find in their Habitat Lab.

Indoor Discussion:

2. Have the students use the AWF’s Dig into Plants and Wonders of Wildlife webpages along with any available field identification guides to identify the plants and animals they found.
3. Next have them answer questions about potential changes in the foodwebs and the results of those changes.
4. Last, they should answer the questions about the flow of energy within a food web on the activity page.
5. Discuss how the the energy animals get from food was once energy from the sun.
6. Discuss how matter and energy is transferred among producers, consumers, and decomposers.

Procedure
Outdoor Discovery:

1. Students explore the Habitat Lab to find a decomposer.
2. Then they create a food web on their activity page with the plants, animals, and decomposers they find in their Habitat Lab.

Indoor Discussion:

3. Students use the AWF’s Dig into Plants and Wonders of Wildlife webpages along with any available field identification guides to identify their decomposer and the plants and animals they found.
4. Have the sudents use the AWF’s Wonders of Wildlife webpages for the Millipede, Red Wiggler Worm, and the Pillbug along with any available field identification guides to research their decomposer.
5. Next have them answer questions about potential changes in the foodwebs and the results of those changes.
6. Last, they should answer the questions about the flow of energy within a food web and the role of decomposers in the food web on the activity page.
7. Discuss how the the energy animals get from food was once energy from the sun.
8. Discuss how matter and energy is transferred among producers, consumers, and decomposers.

Optional Extension:

• Use the AWF’s Ecosystem Investigations: Decomosers and their Habitat webpage to learn more about Alabama’s decomposers and the Roles of Decomposers in an ecosystem.

• The Cornell Lab of Ornithology All About Birds @ https://www.allaboutbirds.org/
• Bug Guide’s Insect Identification @ https://bugguide.net/
• Alabama Butterfly Atlas @ http://www.alabama.butterflyatlas.usf.edu/
• Alabama Department of Conservation & Natural Resources Watchable Wildlife @ https://www.outdooralabama.com/watchable-wildlife
• National Audubon Society Field Guide to the Southeast

• Answer Page #2 Create a Food Web with Decomposers

Evaluate the students’ understanding of the topic with the following assessment tool:

• Create a Food Web Assessment Page (or as Word Doc)