G4 – Energy Flow in the Environment FK 5.7 500 – 600L_02
It’s a lazy summer afternoon on the farm, and you and your sister are out in the pasture picking wild blueberries. You both find them delicious on your morning cereal and hurry to fill up the bag you brought with you. It’s almost time for dinner, and you do not want to be late. It’s been a long time since lunch, and you feel like you are starving.
The horses are not waiting for a scheduled time to eat. They have been grazing on grass in the pasture since you came out. You notice a large hawk soaring high in air. He too must think is time for a tasty snack. He is flying in circles probably waiting for an unsuspecting field mouse. The chickens are busy pecking the ground as they eat bugs.
One field over, the sunflowers track the Sun’s motion across the sky. The Sun is how they get their energy to make food in a process called photosynthesis.
All living things need energy to survive and reproduce. They need energy to grow and to have offspring. Remember that energy can’t be created or destroyed, it can only change form. This principle of Science is called the law of conservation of mass and energy. Earth gets almost all of its energy from the Sun.
Plants use this solar energy to make their own food. They are then able to grow and have offspring. Plants are called producers as they are able to turn solar energy into chemical energy.
Plants are also food for other animals. Animals do not get energy directly from the Sun, so they must eat, or consume, the plants to get their energy. They are called consumers because they consume energy by eating something that contains energy. For some animals, that means eating plants for food. By eating the plant, the energy is passed from the plant to animal.
Some animals consume other animals to get their energy. Energy has the ability to flow from one living thing to another. A food chain is a way of describing this flow of energy from one living organism to another.