Modeling Food Webs in Darién, Panama

Resource Type
Description
In this activity, students use cards to build model food webs and evaluate how ecological disturbances affect each trophic level using information from the citizen science website WildCam Darién.
Students identify producers and consumers in the rainforest ecosystem of Darién National Park in Panama from a curated set of cards of organisms found in the Darién. Students also create food chains to show the flow of energy in the system, introduce an ecological force or disturbance (e.g., logging), and predict how that force would impact animals in the chain. Students then construct a more complex model of the flow of energy by depicting multiple relationships in a food web and again make a prediction about the impact of introducing an ecological force.
The “Resource Google Folder” link directs to a Google Drive folder of resource documents in the Google Docs format. Not all downloadable documents for the resource may be available in this format. The Google Drive folder is set as “View Only”; to save a copy of a document in this folder to your Google Drive, open that document, then select File → “Make a copy.” These documents can be copied, modified, and distributed online following the Terms of Use listed in the “Details” section below, including crediting BioInteractive.
Student Learning Targets
- Classify organisms based on their roles in the transfer of energy in an ecosystem.
- Create a model (e.g., a food chain) showing feeding relationships among organisms.
- Evaluate different models that depict relationships among organisms in a community.
- Predict how ecological forces or disturbances may impact models and justify claims with evidence.
Estimated Time
Key Terms
carnivore, energy flow, herbivore, omnivore, primary consumer, producer, quaternary consumer, rule of 10 percent, secondary consumer, tertiary consumer
Terms of Use
Please see the Terms of Use for information on how this resource can be used.
Version History
NGSS (2013)
HS-LS2-4, HS-LS2-6; SEP2, SEP5, SEP6
AP Biology (2019)
ENE-1.N, ENE-1.O, ENE-4.A, ENE-4.B, SYI-1.G, SYI-1.H, SYI-2.A, SYI-2.B; SP2, SP4
IB Biology (2016)
4.1, 4.2, C.2, C.3
AP Environmental Science (2020)
Topic(s): 1.9, 1.10, 1.11
Learning Objectives & Practices: ENG-1.B, ENG-1.C, ENG-1.D, SP1, SP2, SP4, SP5
IB Environmental Systems and Societies (2017)
2.2, 2.3
Common Core (2010)
ELA.RST.9–12.7, ELA.WHST.9–12.1
Math.N-Q.1; MP1, MP4
Vision and Change (2009)
CC5; DP1, DP2, DP3