Assignment: Energy Flow in Ecosystems Exploration NOTE: Don't forget to submit a photo or scanned image of your food chain
display diagram OR your digital file of your food chain diagram along with this assignment
worksheet.
1. Compare and contrast producers and consumers in an ecosystem
Producers can produce energy for themselves, while consumers, need to find their own source of
food in other organisms. Producers have energy come into the food chain.
2. Decomposers tend to go about their business without being noticed or rewarded for the work
they do. Explain the importance of decomposers in ecosystems. Include in your answer the
role that mold plays in a forest.
Decomposers dead plants, animals, and even waste of other organisms. Decomposers are
important because if they weren't where they are, all of the waste would pile up.
3. What form is energy in when it enters a food chain and when it leaves a food chain?
I
Energy enters through with the form of solar energy ands exits through the form of heat.
4. Only about 10 percent of the energy in an organism is passed on to the next level of a food
chain. Look at this food chain: grass -- rabbit-hawk
That norcentage of the energy stored by the grass is passed on to the hawk?
5. A farmer has a ten-acre plot to feed his family. What is the most efficient way to use the plot? Explain how you got the answer a. grow corn a feed it to his family b. Grow corn and feed it to several cows using the milk and meat from the cows to feed the family