Which way should a food chain arrow point?

From the thing that is eaten to the thing that eats it, because the arrow follows the energy. It is the opposite of the sentence most children have in their head, which is why it is worth spending a lesson on and why the arrows here are drawn for you.

Why does it say a fox does not eat grass?

Because each animal has a short list of what it eats, and a chain has to work link by link. Grass to fox skips a step, and being told exactly which link fails is more useful than being told the chain is wrong.

Can I build a food web?

No, one chain at a time. A web needs branches, and a branching diagram on a whiteboard becomes a tangle faster than it becomes a lesson. Build several chains from the same habitat one after another and the web is the thing the class notices for themselves.

Is the tray a real food web?

It is a true but small slice of one. Every chain the board accepts is one a British habitat really has, but plenty of real meals are missing: foxes eat far more than rabbits and mice, and a real web for one field would not fit on a board.

Food Chain Builder

Science · Year 4–Year 6

Build a food chain, and the board says whether it works.

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About the food chains

Drag plants and animals off the tray into the row and the board makes a food chain out of them. The arrows are drawn for you and always point the same way, and it says whether what you have built is something that could actually happen.

The arrows are the reason this tool exists. Children draw them from the eater to the eaten, because 'the fox eats the rabbit' is the sentence in their head, and the arrow means the opposite: it points the way the energy goes, from the thing eaten to the thing eating it. Here the arrows cannot be drawn the wrong way round, but the cards can be put in the wrong order, and then the board reads it back: a rabbit does not eat a fox.

Leave a box empty in the middle and it turns into a question. Put the grass at one end and the fox at the other and the board asks the class what goes between them, which is a better use of five minutes than copying a chain off the board.

Every organism is named, and named again by its job: producer, primary consumer, secondary consumer, and predator or prey or both. Everything in the middle of a chain is both, which is the idea worth having.

Three habitats, so the tray stays big enough to use with a finger: grassland, woodland and pond. Switching habitat leaves the row alone, so a chain that mixes them can be built on purpose and picked apart.

How to use it on your whiteboard

1Tap a plant or animal in the tray to put it in the next empty box, or drag it into the box you want.
2Drag a card off the row to take it out again, or drag it onto another card to swap them.
3Leave a box empty in the middle to set the class a question.
4Names hides the names, so a class has to say what everything is.
5Roles hides producer, consumer, predator and prey.
6Tap Fullscreen to fill the board.

Questions

Which way should a food chain arrow point?: From the thing that is eaten to the thing that eats it, because the arrow follows the energy. It is the opposite of the sentence most children have in their head, which is why it is worth spending a lesson on and why the arrows here are drawn for you.
Why does it say a fox does not eat grass?: Because each animal has a short list of what it eats, and a chain has to work link by link. Grass to fox skips a step, and being told exactly which link fails is more useful than being told the chain is wrong.
Can I build a food web?: No, one chain at a time. A web needs branches, and a branching diagram on a whiteboard becomes a tangle faster than it becomes a lesson. Build several chains from the same habitat one after another and the web is the thing the class notices for themselves.
Is the tray a real food web?: It is a true but small slice of one. Every chain the board accepts is one a British habitat really has, but plenty of real meals are missing: foxes eat far more than rabbits and mice, and a real web for one field would not fit on a board.