Welcome classmates to the APES blog!

This week was filled with many fun, exciting, and interesting activities that has focused on ecosystems in general. We started the week talking about food chains and food webs. We went outside and tried to draw our food webs on the sidewalk but the wind interrupted our activity and messed it up. Nonetheless, we all grasped the concept and realized the difference between a food web and food chain. We talked later in the week about trophic levels and the energy transfer between animals in an ecosystem, and the interaction between animals as mentioned in Will's post. However, this post is going to focus on trophic levels and energy transfer.

On Wednesday, September 12, 2012 we began our class discussion and activities about the energy pipeline and trophic levels in an ecosystem. We examined the energy transfer from one animal to another as we conducted our activity called "Energy Pipeline". To start off this activity, we had to set up our supplies. We each were given five little cups and a trophic level. Some people were producers (plants), primary consumers (herbivores), or secondary consumers (carnivores). Anyway, after getting out trophic level, we cut out the little squares on our worksheet that described what our trophic level did with their energy. After getting every body's cups ready and explained what was to happen our activity began. All of our producers, which was a big group, sat on the floor and began to "capture" energy from the sun. For this activity, the sun was a big bowl of beans with the beans being the energy. As the producers were obtaining their energy and dropping the beans in the designated cups, our primary consumers were waiting for there to be enough beans (10 to be exact) in the growth cup before "eating" the producers. Once the producers were eaten, the primary consumers took the ten beans they got from the producers and dropped the energy into their own five cups. This process went on for a while until finally our primary consumers began to grow with energy. As this happened our two secondary producers could finally begin to eat. The secondary consumers followed the same steps when eating as the primary consumers did. They had to wait until there were ten beans in the primary consumer's cup before eating it. Once the secondary consumers fed, they two spilt up their beans into their five cups.

The producers are splitting up their energy.



The primary consumers were lurking for food.

After conducting this activity, we went back to our seats and filled out our worksheet that went along with the activity. We discussed what trophic level we were, and what our trophic level does with the energy they gain. Our producers, get their energy from the sun and use it for photosynthesis, growth, reproduction, respiration, and unused sunlight. The primary consumers obtain their energy from the plants they eat and use it for growth, reproduction, digestion, movement, and respiration.Lastly our secondary consumers got their energy from the primary consumers and they too use it for growth, movement, digestion, reproduction, and respiration. The last thing on this worksheet that we did, we drew a picture of this basic food chain we observed and calculated how much energy is passed on from one trophic level to the next. We determined that only 10% of the energy each trophic level has gets passed to the next trophic level. From this activity we learned that every living thing has a place in an ecosystem and are essential to food chains and energy pyramids.


This week was a fun interactive week that allowed everyone in the class to conduct and understand the ecosystem. We learned about food webs, energy transfer, and the interaction between animals. This activity was probably my favorite of the week only because we were up moving around instead of sitting and watching but I'm not saying I didn't enjoy the others though. I hope everyone learned all there was to grasp this week and  I hope you have enjoyed my post! For more information on the interaction between animals be sure to check out Will's post! Below are some links to some videos with information about energy transfer, trophic levels, and food chains.

Cameron Wilson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWh-XKhh8xo&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BjVm0k8GotA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWvtRf4TAO4&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScizkxMlEOM&feature=fvwrel