BUILDING ECOLOGICAL PYRAMIDS Carolina Price $ Belinda Dalke

Objective  To understand how organisms interact within an ecosystem.  To trace the flow of energy through trophic levels.

Previous Knowledge  Important terms  Producers/ consumers  Predator/ prey  Food chains/ food webs  Trophic levels/ ecological pyramids (numbers, mass, and energy)

Concepts  Energy flows through an ecosystem in one direction and is transferred from one trophic level to the next.  In order to construct a food web or look at trophic levels, it is necessary to determine what each organism consumes.

Kit Includes (three activities)  Heat transfer kit – used as a demonstration on how energy is transferred from one object to another in the form of heat (first law of thermal dynamics).

Pyramid worksheet and food calculation table  Students construct daily menu and calculate the amount of food needed at each trophic level to sustain them.  Construct a pyramid of biomass showing their weight gain, the primary consumers and primary producers.  Construct pyramids of mass to scale.

Owl pellet dissection  Use class results to construct a pyramid of numbers and biomass to determine the amount of energy the owl gets from eating its prey. mass of owl (500g) total mass eaten over life span