Everything for the Ecosystems test: study cards, the traps to dodge, a practice quiz at three levels — Foundation, On-Level, and Challenge — and a lab where you build a food chain, label a prairie, sort producers, consumers and decomposers, and explain what happened when the hawks left. Work here, or print it and use a pencil — both count.
Grass. It makes its own food out of sunlight, air and water — nobody feeds it.
The arrow always points TO the eater. Grass → rabbit means the rabbit eats the grass. Read the arrows the wrong way and you get a rabbit eating a hawk — which the test is counting on.
Two things people get wrong
⚠️People often think…
Plants get their food from the soil.
They MAKE their food out of sunlight, air and water. Soil holds the roots and holds water, and gives a few minerals — but the food itself is built in the leaves.
Plants make food. Soil just holds them.
⚠️People often think…
Remove the predators and the prey will do better.
At first, yes — the prey number shoots up. Then they eat through their own food supply and the population crashes. The predator was part of what kept it steady.
Up first, then a crash.
Sun, make, eat, rot, reuse
1Watch one
Where does the energy in a food web finally go?
Start at the sun: the plant catches some of it.
The rabbit eats the plant and gets part of that energy — not all of it.
At every step, most of it leaves as heat into the air.
Energy leaves as heat and does not come back. Matter recycles; energy does not. ✓
2Do one with me
Fill in who does what.
In grass → rabbit, the one that eats is the
Plants get the material for food from air, water and
The ones that break dead things down are the
💬One sentence, then you move on
Why does removing a predator hurt the prey in the end?
3Try one
A snake eats mice and a hawk eats the snake. Is the snake predator or prey?
I want a hint first
One arrow comes in and one arrow goes out. That is two jobs, not one.
Where this goes
Where this lives
A garden, a fish tank, a prairie restoration down the road, why taking one species out of a place changes things nobody expected.
What this feeds
Next unit is Earth in space — where all this energy came from to begin with.
One card at a time — tap “Show me” to check yourself, then Next. Start at Foundation; when those feel easy, climb.
Helpful Hints
🪜 From the sun to the soil — the ladder
Sun → producers make food from air and water → herbivores eat them → carnivores eat herbivores → decomposers break down the dead → nutrients go back to the soil and air → producers use them again. Energy flows through; matter loops.
Sun, make, eat, eat, rot, reuse.
🤝 The whole topic in one idea
Every living thing is connected to every other by what it eats and what eats it. Energy comes in from the sun and leaves as heat; matter is borrowed and returned. Pull one thread and the whole web moves.
Connected, borrowed, balanced.
⚠️ Traps the test loves
The arrow points TO the eater. Grass → rabbit means the rabbit eats the grass.
Plants get their food from air, water and sunlight — NOT from the soil.
Decomposers are not ‘gross’ — without them there would be no soil and no new plants.
Remove a predator and its prey goes UP first — then crashes when the food runs out.
Energy is NOT recycled. It leaves as heat. Matter is.
A snake can be a predator AND prey. Most animals are both.
🌾 Four jobs in every ecosystem — the chart
Job
What it does
On an Illinois prairie
In an Illinois pond
producer
makes food from sunlight, air and water
big bluestem grass, wildflowers
algae, pondweed
herbivore
eats plants
rabbit, vole, grasshopper
snail, tadpole
predator
eats animals
hawk, coyote, garter snake
heron, bass, dragonfly
decomposer
breaks down the dead, returns nutrients
earthworm, fungus
bacteria in the mud
Make, eat, hunt, rot — same jobs everywhere.
🎯 How the test will ask
A food web drawing — “what does X eat? what eats X?” (arrows in, arrows out).
“If all the ____ disappeared, what would happen?” (below it: more; above it: less; then ripples).
A list of living things — “producer, consumer or decomposer?”
“Where does a plant’s food come from?” (air, water, sunlight — not soil).
✅ Before the test, can you…
Build a food chain from the sun to a hawk with the arrows the right way?
Sort twelve living things into producer, consumer, decomposer?
Predict what happens when a predator disappears — in three steps?
Explain why there are few hawks and many grasshoppers?
Say what decomposers do and why it matters?
Pick your level
Look back at anything you missed — the hint that appeared is exactly what to reread tonight.
How sure did you feel?
Lab
Work like a scientist: label the diagrams, turn the table into a graph, then write a claim with evidence and reasoning. Every lab checks itself on the spot, and hints are free.
Your practice never leaves this device. There is no account and no sign-in. Your work is saved in this browser only, and you can erase it whenever you want.
Your practice record — saved on this device
This is your record of the module on screen — it stays here and goes nowhere. Independent means you got it right on the first tap; supported means you got it after the explain-and-retry, or marked ‘I had it’ on a revealed answer. Both count, and neither is a grade. If your teacher asks, copy the row or show them this screen.
Date
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Topic
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Level
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Independent
0 of 0
Supported
0 of 0
Hints used
0
Cards studied
0
Lab
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Traps met
0
Explained in own words
0
Confidence
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The answer key is for a teacher: it prints only from here, for the unit on screen. Print the study packet prints the study pages and a blank quiz — never the answers.