📚 Part 1: Multiple Choice & Identification

1. What is a producer in an ecosystem?

An organism that makes its own food using sunlight or chemicals

An organism that eats other organisms

An organism that only breaks down dead material

An organism that moves energy between ecosystems

2. Which organism is best described as a decomposer?

Rabbit

Oak tree

Earthworm

Hawk

3. Energy is lost between trophic levels mainly as:

Heat (from metabolism)

Oxygen released by producers

Water returned to the soil

Sunlight absorbed by leaves

4. In this food chain: Grass → Grasshopper → Frog → Snake. Who is the primary consumer?

Grasshopper

Frog

Snake

Grass

✏️ Part 2: Diagrams and Short Answers

5. Food Chain Diagram — Label the parts below.

Example printed chain: Sun → Grass → Grasshopper → Frog → Snake

On the diagram below, label: Producer, Primary consumer, Secondary consumer, Tertiary consumer. Draw arrows to show energy flow.

6. Food Web Activity — Use the space to connect these organisms and label producers, consumers, and decomposers:

Species: Grass, Rabbit, Deer, Fox, Hawk, Mushroom (decomposer), Grasshopper

Draw a simple web showing who eats whom. Then answer: If rabbits decline, which two organisms are most directly affected and why?

7. Explain how energy flows through the food chain you labeled in question 5. In 2–3 sentences, include which level has the most available energy and why.

🔁 Part 3: Matter Cycling & Review

8. Describe how matter (for example, carbon or nutrients) cycles within an ecosystem. Give one short example that includes decomposition.

9. Check all that apply: Which processes return matter to the soil?

Decomposition of dead organisms

Photosynthesis

Waste and excretion from animals

Predation (one animal eating another)

✅ Answer Key

1.

An organism that makes its own food using sunlight or chemicals.

2.

Earthworm.

3.

Heat from metabolism.

4.

Grasshopper.

5.

Grass = producer; Grasshopper = primary consumer; Frog = secondary consumer; Snake = tertiary consumer. Arrows should show energy flow from the food source to the organism receiving energy.

6.

Possible food web: Grass → Rabbit → Fox; Grass → Deer → Fox; Grass → Grasshopper → Hawk; Grass → Rabbit → Hawk. Mushroom is a decomposer of dead plants and animals. If rabbits decline, foxes and hawks are directly affected because rabbits are a food source for both.

7.

Energy flows from the Sun to producers and then consumers. Producers have the most available energy because they capture sunlight directly, and energy decreases at each higher trophic level as heat.

8.

Matter cycles through organisms and the environment, and decomposition returns nutrients to the soil.

9.

Decomposition of dead organisms; waste and excretion from animals.