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Food Chains: How Energy Travels from the Sun to a Hawk

Students build a food chain link by link and discover that every meal — for every living thing — traces its energy back to the Sun.

Grades 3–5Upper Elementary45 minutes1 class period5E ModelInquiry-based4 StandardsNGSS + CCSS
Start the Lesson
Lesson at a Glance

Everything you need before the bell rings

Learning Objectives

Students will be able to…

  • ✓Build a food chain in the correct order.
  • ✓Identify producers, consumers, and decomposers.
  • ✓Explain that energy flows from the Sun up the chain.
  • ✓Predict what happens when a link in the chain is removed.
Essential Question

A hawk eats a snake, the snake ate a frog… but where did the energy start? Follow the chain all the way back.

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5E Phases
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Vocabulary Terms
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Standards Aligned
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Interactive Task
Explore · Interactive Model

Build the Food Chain

Project this and have students tap the pieces in the right order to trace energy from the Sun to the top of the chain.

🔗 Build the chain — tap the pieces in orderTry it
1
→
2
→
3
→
4
→
5
→
6

Tip: every food chain starts with the Sun and a producer (a plant), then energy flows to each animal that eats the one before it.

The Lesson · 5E Model

45 minutes, five moves

Tap any phase to open the teacher moves and student actions.

1

Engage — Trace Your Lunch

5 min

Where did the energy in your sandwich come from?

👩‍🏫 Teacher Moves

  • Ask students where the energy in their lunch began.
  • Follow bread → wheat → sunlight together.
  • Reveal: all food energy starts with the Sun.

🎒 Student Actions

  • Trace one food back to its source.
  • Guess where the energy first came from.
  • Record a first idea in their notebook.
2

Explore — Build the Food Chain

12 min

Students order the chain from Sun to hawk.

👩‍🏫 Teacher Moves

  • Send groups to the Build the Food Chain model above.
  • Ask them to place the pieces in order.
  • Prompt: “Which way does the energy flow?”

🎒 Student Actions

  • Tap the pieces into the right order.
  • Notice the chain starts with Sun + plant.
  • Explain which animal eats which.
3

Explain — Producers & Consumers

12 min

Give every link a name.

👩‍🏫 Teacher Moves

  • Define producer, consumer, decomposer.
  • Explain energy flows one way, up the chain.
  • Introduce herbivore, carnivore, predator, prey.

🎒 Student Actions

  • Label each link as producer or consumer.
  • Explain the job of a decomposer.
  • Draw arrows showing energy flow.
4

Elaborate — Food Webs

11 min

What if one link disappears?

👩‍🏫 Teacher Moves

  • Show that chains connect into a food web.
  • Ask: “What if all the frogs vanished?”
  • Connect to real ecosystems and balance.

🎒 Student Actions

  • Predict effects of removing one animal.
  • Combine two chains into a simple web.
  • Explain why every link matters.
5

Evaluate — Exit Ticket

5 min

Three quick checks on chains and energy.

👩‍🏫 Teacher Moves

  • Hand out the exit ticket below.
  • Look for Sun-start + producer/consumer.
  • Collect as formative data.

🎒 Student Actions

  • Order a short food chain.
  • Label a producer and a consumer.
  • Explain where the energy started.
Standards Alignment

Built to the standards you report on

Aligned to Next Generation Science Standards and Common Core literacy. State-standard crosswalks available on request.

NGSS
5-PS3-1

Use models to describe that energy in animals’ food was once energy from the sun.

NGSS
5-LS2-1

Develop a model to describe the movement of matter among plants, animals, decomposers, and the environment.

NGSS
5-LS1-1

Support an argument that plants get the materials they need for growth chiefly from air and water.

CCSS
W.5.2

Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly.

Differentiation

One lesson, every learner

Multilingual Learners

ELL / EMERGING READERS
  • Picture cards for each chain link to arrange.
  • Sentence frame: “The ___ eats the ___.”
  • Color-code producers, consumers, decomposers.

Support & Access

IEP / 504
  • Start with a 3-link chain (Sun → grass → rabbit).
  • Provide the pieces pre-ordered to check.
  • Allow arranging picture cards instead of writing.

Stretch & Extend

GIFTED / EARLY FINISHERS
  • Build a food web for a local ecosystem.
  • Research a decomposer’s role (fungi, worms).
  • Explain why there are fewer top predators than plants.
Materials

What to gather

  • 📽️Projector / board
  • 📓Science notebooks
  • 💻The Build-the-Chain model
  • 🖼️Plant & animal picture cards
  • ✏️Colored pencils
  • 🎫Exit-ticket slips
Vocabulary

Key terms — hover for a quick definition

food chainthe path of energy from one living thing to the nextproducera plant that makes its own foodconsumeran animal that eats other living thingsdecomposerbreaks down dead thingsenergythe power to grow and movepredatoran animal that huntspreyan animal that is huntedfood webconnected food chains
Evaluate

Exit Ticket

Preview the three formative checks. Tap “Sample answer” to see what mastery looks like — hide them before you print for students.

QUESTION 1
Put this chain in order: frog, Sun, snake, grass, grasshopper.
Sun → grass → grasshopper → frog → snake.
QUESTION 2
In a food chain, what is the difference between a producer and a consumer?
A producer (a plant) makes its own food using sunlight. A consumer is an animal that gets energy by eating other living things.
QUESTION 3
All the grass in a meadow dies. What happens to the animals in that food chain, and why?
The grasshoppers lose their food and decline, which means less food for frogs, then snakes and hawks — every link above is affected because energy flows up from the producer.

Going deeper? Weave a class food web.

Give each student an organism card and a ball of yarn; connect “who eats whom” across the room to build a living food web, then drop one link and watch it ripple. A printable card set is in the Science library.

Study · Flashcards

Study the key terms

Tap a card to flip it, then rate whether you knew it. Built from this lesson’s vocabulary.

🃏 Food Chains & Energy FlowFlip
Card 1
Term
Tap to flip →
Meaning
0

Nice work!

Practice · Quiz

Check your understanding

A quick self-check with instant feedback, drawn from this lesson’s key terms.

📝 Food Chains & Energy FlowQuiz
Score: 0
1 / 6
Question 1
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Nice work!

Practice · Worksheet

Printable worksheet

A print-and-go review sheet with a built-in answer key. Tap “Show answer key” to reveal answers, or print the clean version for students.

🖨️ Food Chains & Energy FlowPrint
Name: ________________________
Date: ____________

Part A · Write the word that matches each meaning

Word bank: consumer, decomposer, energy, food chain, food web, predator, prey, producer
  1. the path of energy from one living thing to the next
  2. a plant that makes its own food
  3. an animal that eats other living things
  4. an animal that is hunted
  5. connected food chains
  6. an animal that hunts
  7. the power to grow and move
  8. breaks down dead things

Part B · Show what you learned

  1. Put this chain in order: frog, Sun, snake, grass, grasshopper.
  2. In a food chain, what is the difference between a producer and a consumer?
  3. All the grass in a meadow dies. What happens to the animals in that food chain, and why?
Answer key — Part A: 1) food chain · 2) producer · 3) consumer · 4) prey · 5) food web · 6) predator · 7) energy · 8) decomposer
Part B: 1) Sun → grass → grasshopper → frog → snake. 2) A producer (a plant) makes its own food using sunlight. A consumer is an animal that gets energy by eating other living things. 3) The grasshoppers lose their food and decline, which means less food for frogs, then snakes and hawks — every link above is affected because energy flows up from the producer.