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Welcome! Today, we will learn how to ask great questions about how energy flows in nature.
An ecosystem is a community of living things and their environment. Food chains show how energy moves from the sun to plants and animals.
To study ecosystems, we must ask good questions. We can ask 'what' questions about the parts, or 'how' questions about the connections.
We also ask 'what if' questions. These help us predict what happens when a food chain changes.
✏️ Worked example
Imagine a simple pond food chain: Algae -> Minnow (small fish) -> Perch (large fish). Let's practice generating three different types of questions to investigate this ecosystem.
- Step 1: Create a basic 'What' question to identify the roles. Example: 'What is the producer in this pond food chain?'
- Step 2: Create a 'How' question to look at energy flow. Example: 'How does energy get from the algae to the perch?'
- Step 3: Create a 'What if' question to predict changes. Example: 'What would happen to the algae if all the minnows got sick and died?'
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