Food Webs
Middle School
In this Reef HQ Education program students investigate the highly complex and amazing food webs and interrelationships found on the Great Barrier Reef. Students will develop an understanding of the complex ecological structures and interrelationships found on the Great Barrier Reef.
Curriculum Links
Completing this Reef HQ Education Program will develop students' ability to:
- Apply ideas of energy transfer and transformation to explain the importance of photosynthesis and respiration;
- Make generalisations about the types of interaction which take place between living and non-living parts of the environment;
- Collect information about the structure and function of living things and relate structure and function to survival;
- Examine and prepare scenarios that describe the potential long-term effects of changes in biodiversity caused by human action on ecosystems;
- Explain why certain reef creatures live together in specific areas of the reef;
- Organise data into a meaningful and useful forms; and
- Appreciate the benefit that certain reef creature interrelationships have.
The following unit includes suggestions for activities that can be completed before and after your Reef HQ visit.
Reef HQ Visit
This teacher resource is linked to a class visit to Reef HQ. The Reef HQ visit will enable students to:
- Observe a highly diverse reef ecosystem;
- Observe reef creatures and their peculiar behaviours;
- Observe reef creature interrelationships within the reef ecosystem;
- Investigate some of the interrelationships that exist between reef creatures;
- Appreciate the varying ecological levels within reef ecosystems and the links that form food chains and food webs;
- Develop an appreciation for the fact that organisms are competing for resources with the reef ecosystem;
- Understand that ecosystems are cyclic in nature; and
- Investigate the connection between the living and non-living components of the reef environment.
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Attached Documents
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Classification - Challenge Activity
File size: 794k
Feeding Investigations - Challenge Activity
File size: 540k
Food Glorious Food - Challenge Activity
File size: 1341k
Food Web - Challenge Activity
File size: 951k
Food Webs - Teaching Unit
File size: 326k
