Friday, November 13, 2015
12:30 - 01:30; 60 min.
Science:
The food chain and energy lab-
Today we used beakers, an eye -dropper, and food coloring, to explore how energy moves through the food chain. First I had Samantha make labels for each of the actors in the food chain; producers, first level consumers, second level consumers, third level consumers and decomposers. We then filled one beaker with 50 ml of water, for each label. Samantha was tasked with placing 10 drops of food coloring in the producer beaker to represent the energy plants convert from sunlight. She then took a dropper and placed 10 drops from the producer beaker to the first level consumer beaker. She then took ten drops from that beaker to add to the next and so on. She took ten drops from each beaker to place in the decomposer beaker to represent the energy that us collected by the mushrooms and worms that decompose all dead plants and animals. Sam was astonished to see how the energy (or color) diminished at each consecutive step. We discussed how and why it is important to eat plants and herbivore to have the most energetic diet. We also discussed why it is silly to eat wolves, sharks or eagles, who are all third level consumers.