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Week 07 · Who Eats Whom

Monday

Producers make the food
// Producers, consumers, decomposers and the webs that link them
⏱ about 15 min

Monday: Producers Make the Food

Rocket flops onto the workshop step with a crunchy apple. "I need energy for building!"

Raven looks up from her field notebook. "Where did the energy in that apple come from?"

Rocket chews. "From the tree, I guess. Where did the tree get it?"

Nova hovers into a sunbeam and glows. "Think about what the tree soaks up all day," she says.

Nova projects a glowing food web: plant, caterpillar, bird and hawk.

Where food starts

Every living thing needs energy to live and grow.

You get energy from food. A bird gets energy from seeds or insects.

But plants do not eat. So where do they get energy?

Plants make their own food. They use light from the sun, water and air.

Because they make food, scientists call plants producers.

Almost every food chain on land starts with a producer.

ProducerWhere you might see itWho eats it
grassa lawn or a parkrabbits, insects, some birds
a treethe sidewalk, the creek pathcaterpillars, squirrels, birds
a flowera garden bedbees and butterflies sip its nectar
a weeda sidewalk crackinsects and seed-eating birds
PRODUCER CHECK
  • Read the question.
  • Tap your answer.
What do we call a living thing that makes its own food?
Which of these is a producer?
Where does the energy in a plant come from first?

Making food from light

Leaves are the food factories of a plant.

A leaf takes in light from the sun. It takes in air through tiny openings.

Roots pull water up from the soil to the leaves.

Inside the leaf, light energy is used to make sugar. That sugar is the plant's food.

The plant uses the sugar to grow stems, roots, flowers and seeds.

When a rabbit eats grass, the energy from the sun moves into the rabbit.

  • Sunlight: the energy that powers the food factory.
  • Air: a leaf takes in a gas called carbon dioxide.
  • Water: roots pull it up from the soil.
  • Sugar: the food the plant makes and uses to grow.
Plants use light from the ____ to make food.
The part of a plant that makes most of its food is the ____.
Roots pull ____ up from the soil.
StatementTrue or false?
A producer makes its own food.?
A rabbit is a producer.?
Most food chains on land start with a plant.?
Plants get their energy from the soil.?
WHY THIS EXERCISEPlants are producers. Their energy comes from sunlight, and animals get it by eating.
What do scientists call a living thing that makes its own food?
WHY THIS EXERCISEA producer makes food from light, water and air. Every food chain needs one.
Try it
Go outside with a grown-up, or look out a window.
Count every producer you can see in one minute. Grass counts as one.
Say which one looks like it gets the most sun.
Safety first
Look with your eyes. Do not pick or taste any plant.
Some plants can make skin itch. Stay on paths and keep hands to yourself.
Wash your hands when you come back inside.
Draw one producer you counted. Label the sun, the leaves and the roots.

Great start, explorer! Tomorrow we meet the eaters: the consumers.