Draw a food chain diagram

Many explanatory diagrams on the food chain are on the Internet. Suggest that students, individually or in small groups, do a search on the Internet and choose the diagram that they think is easiest to understand. Students will explain why, for them, this or that diagram is easy or difficult to understand.

This research (and analysis) of existing diagrams on the Internet will aim to provide a clear understanding of the three categories of living beings that interact in a food chain:

• Producers (very often plants).
• Consumers (herbivores and carnivores).
• Decomposers (bacteria and fungi). Consumers feed on producers who feed on mineral elements transformed by decomposers from the organic matter of consumers and dead producers (dead animals or plants).

The students will then imagine their own food chain diagrams. A food chain can be longer or shorter and students will choose the number of links in their chain. They will choose as many living beings as they want but will not forget to show the three categories (producers, consumers and decomposers).

The teacher will validate the strings in text form before proposing the drawing phase. Students will choose to draw their chain in the shape of a pyramid or with arrows. The drawings will be displayed in the class and the students will present their work, explaining their choices to the other students.