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Science Launch G5 / Week 08 / Launch Lab
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Week 08 · Food Webs

Launch Lab

Launch Lab: The string web
// Matter moves among plants, animals and decomposers
⏱ about 15 min

Launch Lab: The string web

The family sits in a circle on the floor. Raven holds a ball of yarn.

"Each of us is a living thing in a forest," she says. "I am the Sun. Who is the oak tree?"

Rocket raises his hand. "And I am the mushroom," his grandpa says, laughing.

Nova glows softly in the middle of the circle. "Every time something eats or is eaten, pass the yarn," she says. "Let's see the web grow."

  1. Producers make food. Consumers eat. Decomposers break down dead things.
  2. Food chains connect into food webs.
  3. Matter cycles between air, soil and living things. It is never lost.
  4. Fungi and bacteria return materials to the soil for new plants.
◇ THE STRING WEB
Each person picks a role: Sun, oak tree, grass, rabbit, mouse, fox, hawk or mushroom.
The Sun holds the end of the yarn and passes the ball to a producer.
Keep passing the yarn along each link, like grass to rabbit, while holding on to your piece.
Make sure the mushroom gets connected to dead plants and animals.
When the web is done, one person gently tugs. Who feels it?
For a grown-up
Ask: what did you notice? What would you change?
Ask what would happen to the web if one living thing disappeared.
WEEK CHECK
  • Read the question.
  • Tap your answer.
What is a mushroom's job in a food web?
When the grass player tugged, who felt it?
Fungi and bacteria are ____.
Many food chains connected together make a food ____.
Does matter get used up in an ecosystem, or does it cycle? Type one word.
WHY THIS EXERCISEMatter cycles. It is never lost.

Next week we zoom out to see the whole planet as one giant system.

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