Week 7: Energy Transfer

 


Week 7 Energy Transfer


What question were we investigating?

This week in lab we investigated the questions, Where does living stuff come from? Where does it go?

What did we do to investigate the question?

This week in lab we focused on how energy and matter gets transferred throughout food chains. We did this by completing a simulation on the transfer of energy and matter. To begin each of us got assigned a role as a  producers, primary consumers, or secondary consumers. Each person received a ziploc bag filled with "energy". At each station we were required to give up a certain amount of energy for basic tasks such as respiration, reproduction, making or searching for food, and more. Each task took up energy, whatever was left in the bag was given to the primary consumers. This then repeated for the primary consumers and whatever was left was given to the secondary consumers. 


What did we figure out?

We found out that as energy moves the food chain majority of it is lost. Beginning with the producers only little is left for the primary consumers and even less left for the secondary consumers. This showed us how much energy it takes for these organisms to participate in their normal tasks, and when consumed by the next level on the food chain as energy they lose some as well with only little to give to the last level on the food chain. 

What remaining questions do I have?

The one question I have is when teaching this simulation to students what can we do to ensure that they understand the affect on secondary consumers but also allowing secondary consumers to have a little energy. In both rounds of our simulation they died because there was no energy left for them. 

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