Food Web #1
This student has included the sun and green plants in his web with energy coming from the sun to the green plants. Then he reverses the arrows, presumably to show "what eats what." However, there is some inconsistency where he shows the arrow from the hawk to the bear yet has an arrow from the gazelle to the grass. While he drew the configuration in a circle, the connections are actually a long chain and he doesn't show any branching. The web also does not reflect a greater abundance of producers and primary consumers than secondary consumers. He draws one animal to represent each member of the food web (except grass and hunters), so I would probably ask him what each one shows just to see if he talks about populations or individuals. He does not include any decomposers. It is unclear what is at the top where he has a line from a snail to the word "age" and from "age" to a human.
Food Web #2
This student includes the sun and green plants in his web. He connects the organisms using lines instead of arrows. This makes it tricky to tell if he sees the connections being about energy transfer or who eats what. However, research suggests that students who use lines transition to reasoning in terms of energy transfer more quickly than those who use arrows. Therefore, this is a positive sign. His web shows some branching with more producers and primary consumers than secondary consumers reflecting the pyramid of how energy is consumed. He draws one animal to represent each member of the food web so I would ask him what each one shows just to see if he talks about populations or individuals. He does not include any decomposers.
Food Web #3
This student has green plants in his web, but leaves out the sun. He shows energy coming from the green plants to the primary consumers and from the primary consumers to the secondary ones. His web shows some branching with more producers and primary consumers than secondary consumers reflecting the pyramid of how energy is consumed. For the most part, he draws one animal but uses the plural in his labels to represent members of the food web so I would ask him what each one shows to see if he talks about populations or individuals. He does not include any decomposers.
