Hello there, my name is Mr. Wilshire, and in this lesson we're going to be looking at presenting food chains.

The outcome for this lesson is I can present food chains in different ways.

There are lots of keywords to consider as we work our way through this lesson.

The first one is food chains.

Next up, predators.

After that, is pray.

Then, consumers.

And finally, present.

You may have heard some of these words before.

If not though, you can pause the video now and have a quick refresh of those different definitions.

Restart the video when you've done that.

The first part of this lesson is called the size of predators and prey.

Sophia and Lucas have been carrying out research.

They want to create their own food chains.

Sophia says, I went to the library to read some non-fiction books.

They're all about different animals and what they eat.

And Lucas says, I use the internet to search different websites about predators and prey.

Here is the food chain created by Sophia.

First of all, she started off with some seaweed.

Then it goes up to the blue tang fish and finally goes up to the shark.

Take a moment now to explain to a partner what this food chain shows.

What are you looking at here? What are those arrows for? What eats what? Hmm.

Pause the video and discuss.

Restart when you've done that.

How did you get on? Did you have a think about who would eat who here? Well, here I can see the blue tang fish that goes along.

It eats the seaweed.

And then the shark comes along and unfortunately then eats the blue tang fish.

Hmm.

So that is a food chain.

It's showing us who eats who and what eats what.

I wonder if the seaweed eats anything.

Hmm.

No.

I don't think the seaweed would eat a fish or anything like that, would it? But I wonder if we could add anything else.

Here is the food chain created by Lucas.

He started with algae.

Then he's put down pond snail that is eaten by a frog, and then a frog could be eaten by a heron.

My goodness.

Which living things are predators and pray in this food chain? Have a little think.

What do those two words mean? Can you remember from the definition slide at the beginning what is a predator and what is a prey? And how can you answer this question? Pause the video here and have a really good discussion about this.

Restart when you've done that.

How did you get on? Did you manage to find who was a predator and who was a prey in this food chain? So the pond snail here is prey, isn't it? It's being eaten by another animal.

It's being eaten by the frog.

That means the frog is a predator that's hunting down the snail and eating it.

But then the frog itself is also the prey, isn't it? 'Cause that's being hunted by the predator, the heron.

So the frog is a predator and it's prey.

A predator is an animal that will eat another animal, and a prey is an animal that is eaten by another animal.

So that doesn't mean that the algae is the prey of the pond snail.

The pond snail is a consumer of algae.

It comes along, it eats the algae, it doesn't really need to chase it, does it? Sophia and Lucas then compare the producers and the consumers, including predators and prey, in their food chains.

So I wonder what you notice here by looking at these pictures.

I've given you a little example of what a consumer is.

So have a go using that knowledge and tell me, what do you notice? Stop and think.

Which of these can be compared in different food chains? Is it the producers and consumers? Is it the conductors and insulators? Or is it the predators and prey? The correct answer here is a and c, the producers and consumers and the predators and prey.

Well, the children notice differences between their two food chains, not just that one of them has an extra picture.

Sophia says, my food chain has one predator and it's got one prey.

Yeah, can you remember that I did say before that the seaweed is not the prey of the blue tang fish? Then she points out Lucas's food chain and says, your food chain has two predators and two prey.

You see them there.

Remember I explained before that the frog was both a predator and a prey, in this case.

Lucas then says, well, our food chains are different because your consumers are fish and none of my consumers are fish.

So they're all types of animals that live in or around the water, aren't they? But two of those are fish, definitely.

The children then notice similarities between their food chains.

Sophia says, our food chains are very similar because they both include plants and animals found living in water.

Oh, that's bit like what I just said.

Lucas then says, our food chains are similar because each predator is bigger than its prey.

I think food chains are always in order of animal size.

Do you agree with Lucas? Does it matter if there's something bigger? Is there always a bigger fish? Pause the video here and discuss.

Restart when you've done that.

How did you get on? Did you consider the sizes of animals? Let's find out more.

Lucas is incorrect.

Here you can see one such example.

Consumers are often larger in size, but not always.

A predator is not always bigger than its prey.

Look at the example here of the giraffe and the lion.

So the giraffe comes along and it nibbles on the producer of food, it consumes that food, and then the predator might come along one day and eat the prey.

Oh, dear.

Can you think of any other examples where this is true as well? Have a quick think.

Restart the video when you've done that, I wonder what examples you thought of.

Let's see if they match any of the ones that we've got here.

Lions, you see, are predators.

They're at the end of their food chains.

The prey of lions usually consist of larger mammals such as zebra, wildebeest, and buffalo.

Here you can see a picture of a lioness ready to attack zebras.

And yeah, those zebras are a lot bigger than that lion, aren't they? I always thought that it was the biggest animal, but that's definitely not the case in every single situation, is it? I wonder what other examples you thought of.

Let's stop and think.

True or false? A predator is always bigger than its prey.

The answer here is false.

But why? Can we justify our answer? Have a think about how we could answer that question.

Why is this false? Well, here's one such example.

It says, animals in a food chain are not always arranged in order of size.

There are some examples where a predator is smaller than its prey, such as a lion is the predator of a buffalo.

Here's Task A.

Work with a partner to think of, or research, a predator that is smaller than its prey.

Include this predator and prey in a food chain.

So you need to do some of your own research here, and then you need to make your own food chain using that knowledge and information.

Best of luck with your task.

Restart the video when you've done that.

How did you get on? Hopefully you were able to work with a partner to do some research and then make your own type of food chain.

Well, here is one such example.

They say, I found out that grey wolves mostly eat larger, hoofed animals including deer, moose, elk and bison.

This sounds like it's in another country, isn't it? So maybe it's in the country of Canada.

So it starts off with the berries and the elk come along and they eat all of that.

Then the grey wolf might come along and eat the elk.

So it starts off with the producer being the berries and the elk comes along and eats it, and that is the prey of the predator, the grey wolf.

Hopefully, some of your food chains look very similar to this.

I wonder what other fascinating bits of research you found out.

Well done.

The next part of this lesson is called presenting food chains in different ways.

Now, Laura wants to show that consumers are not always arranged in order of their size in a food chain.

Here you can see a lovely picture of some giraffes and someone taking a picture of it as well.

Now, a lion is a predator of a giraffe, Laura says.

This is an example of a predator that is smaller than its prey.

Laura researches a producer for her food chain.

And she says, well, I found out that gaffes live in Africa and they eat plants.

They eat the leaves that are really high in the acacia tree.

This will be the producer in my food chain.

So the producer is always the thing that starts off as the food in the first place, usually a piece of vegetation like this acacia tree here.

Laura can then present her food chain with an arrow in between each living thing to represent "is food for".

She says, food chains can be presented with just writing if you need to.

There you can see it says acacia tree, and that is food for the giraffe, and that is food for the lion.

So each arrow represents the words "is food for".

So you can then read that back as a sentence if you need to.

She then says, but it can also be done with writing and pictures.

And it's always a good idea to label each of the pictures here because otherwise someone might not really know what animal or what plant that is and get a little bit confused.

So always label your pictures to create a diagram.

There you can see an image of the acacia tree leaves that is eaten by the giraffe, who is eaten by the lion or giraffe.

Let's stop and think.

What represents "is food for" in between each living thing in a food chain? Is it a plus sign, a dotted line, or is it an arrow? The correct answer here is an arrow.

An arrow represents the words "is food for" in between each living thing in a food chain.

So Laura and her friends have some ideas for how to present her food chain in different ways.

Of course, you didn't always have to draw it, do you? Sophia then says, well, I've drawn the producer, the prey, the predator, and I've drawn arrows onto separate pieces of card.

I've then pegged them onto a washing line in the correct order of the food chain.

Here you can see an example.

Oh, yeah, fantastic.

That's another way of showing it as well, isn't it? Although I can't see any labels there.

She might want to think about adding a label too.

So this is one idea, isn't it? You could do a food chain on a washing line.

Laura then comes along and says, well, I've drawn the producer, prey and predator onto paper cups.

I can then stack the cups in order of which living thing is food for which other living thing to show how they depend on each other for food.

Here, look, you can see there's the food chain.

It starts off with vegetation that's eaten by the giraffe and then the lion.

Oh, brilliant.

So there you can really see that one thing is eating another because it's completely disappearing, isn't it? That poor giraffe, though.

I'll let you have a quick watch of this video.

So pause the video here if you want to watch some more.

Let's stop and think.

True or false? A food chain must only be presented in writing.

The answer there is false.

Doesn't just have to be writing.

Why though? Can you think of a good reason why? Maybe your answer is similar to this.

A food chain could be presented in different ways, including with writing and or with pictures.

Here is Task B.

Use the food chain that you created in Task A.

I wonder if you can choose another way to present your food chain using writing and or pictures.

So have a go here and get creative.

You can present your information in any way.

I wonder if there's another way to show how one animal might eat another.

Best of luck with your task.

Restart the video when you've done that.

How did you get on? How were you able to choose another way to present your information? Lucas says, well, I drew a tree, a giraffe and a lion onto pieces of paper.

I then attached them to a washing line using pegs.

I put arrows between each living thing and I pointed out which living thing was the producer, which was the prey and which was the predator.

I also explained that the arrows mean "is food for".

I wonder if any of you were able to use a computer to come up with your new ways of presenting this information.

Lucas says, there are lots of different ways to present food chains.

How did you choose to present your food chain? Let's summarise our lesson.

We can compare the producers and consumers, including predators and prey, in different food chains.

A predator is not always bigger in size when compared to its prey.

Most food chains are presented with an arrow in between each living thing to represent "is food for".

A food chain could be presented in different ways, including with writing and or pictures.

Hopefully, you've had a chance to do some extra research into different animals and the things that they eat.

Hopefully, you were also able to present all of that information in a different way to show off your knowledge of food chains.

Remember, sometimes there could be more than one predator or more than one prey in a food chain.

I wonder what information you found out and how you presented it.

Well done for completing your task.

I'm your Mr. Wilshire.

Thank you very much for listening.