Science Activities: Consumers & Producers
Consumers and producers are roles in the food chain. The food chain is the backbone to every ecosystem. Producers are at the beginning of the food chain and are classified as plants and vegetables and producers get their energy from the sun through photosynthesis. Consumers come next on the food chain. There are three levels of consumers: herbivores, carnivores or omnivores. A consumer is an organism that feeds on other organisms. There are several science activities that can accompany any consumers and producers lesson plan.
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Producers and Consumers Tag
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One interactive way to follow up a producers and consumers lesson plan is by playing a game of producers and consumers tag. Playing producers and consumers tag gives the children an opportunity to apply the information they have learned about what a consumer or a producer is. Take the class to the gym or outside to an open space and have the kids line up in two lines facing each other. The lines should be about 4 feet apart. Designate one line to be the producers and the other line to be the consumers and a safety line for each side like a home base area. Next the teacher will call out an organism, either a producer or a consumer. For example the teacher could call out "elephant." The line that is called (consumers in the example) will run after the other line and try to tag them. This gives the children a chance to think about the organism that is called and categorize it as either a consumer or a producer. Once the line that was called tags all of the children from the other line or the children reach their home base, have the children line back up and call out another organism.
Catagorizing Consumer and Producer Pictures
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Another activity to help kids understand what type of organisms fall into which category is to print out some pictures of organisms from both categories and have the kids cut them out. Also have two pieces of paper, one with consumers written on it and the other with producers written on it. After the children have cut out the pictures ask them to glue them onto the correct page, consumers (plants) on the page titled "consumers" and producers (animals) on the page titled "producers".
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Read The Lorax by Dr. Suess
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Read and discuss The Lorax by Dr. Suess as a class when talking about consumers and producers. Read this story aloud and ask the class questions about the consumers and producers in the story. Some example questions are:
1. How did the Once-ler upset the balance of ecosystem in the story?
2. What effect did the Once-ler's business have on the water, air and living things in the ecosystem?
This story provides a way to help the kids grasp the idea of how things work together in an ecosystem and to get them talking about different elements of the ecosystem.
Creating a Food Chain from Construction Paper
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The PLANETPALS website has a food chain craft project made from construction paper.
Cut half-inch strips out of construction paper, using a different color for each category: plants, insects, plant-eaters and meat-eaters, (don't use yellow yet). Instruct the children to draw pictures on the strips of the different organisms in the food chain, plants, insects, animals, and birds. When the children are done drawing have them link their food chains together in order (ex. flower > bee > bird > cat) Then have the students make a large sun from yellow construction paper and attach their food chains to their sun. If you are doing this project as a class another idea would be to make one big sun and have the entire class attach their food chains to it.
Draw Food Chains
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Have the students draw two or more food chains of their own containing at least four organisms in each chain. Have the students pick a different diverse ecosystem for each of their food chains (ex. rain forest, ocean, desert, the arctic). Instruct the students to draw an arrow between each part of the food chain that they draw to show the flow of energy from one organism to the next. Have them label each part starting with the producer and then the first, second and third level consumer.
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References
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- Photo Credit risky business 1. image by mdb from Fotolia.com
