Food Chains

Finding out about food chains

From the sun's rays to plants, herbivores and predators...

This Nature Club session for primary school age children is all about how food chains work and what happens to the energy transferred from one stage to the next. Take a look at the video for an overview and then check out the resources below for encouraging children to create their own food chains.

Video: Join our Education Manager Vicky as she explains how all energy is delivered from the sun, with clever plants then turning that energy into food.  Vicky goes on to describes herbivores and carnivores and their place in the food chain.

Energy is lost in the food chain at each stage through growth, reproduction and movement and arrows can be used to indicate energy flow. You may want to develop your understanding further by starting to talk about Producers and Consumers.

Vicky also has a great game you can play using clothes pegs to get you  moving! Finally can you spot any holly on your walks? Have a closer look and see if you can find the larvae of a leaf miner fly munching away - a very simple food chain in action.

Create your own food chain!

You might want to have a go at creating, writing or drawing some food chains of your own. To help out we have two downloadable resources below, which have some pictures of plants, herbivores and predators for printing out. The A4 sized pictures could be laminated and taken outside for a game, or you might like to download and print out the 'Create your own food chain' sheet, which has smaller pictures suitable for cutting out and sticking into a book or on a piece of paper.  Remember to draw arrows to show which direction energy flows and how it is lost along the way.