Sterling's Learning Blog

Food webs

Food webs consist of all the life cycles in a single ecosystem and the constant flow of energy in an ecosystem. They are what an animal eats and then what eats that animal. A food web has all the animals in an ecosystem interconnected and balanced. If one animal in the food web gets taken away or added, then the ecosystem will be thrown off balance and potentially destroy the ecosystem.

All Ecosystems

There are food webs in every ecosystem. All ecosystems get their energy from the sun, which is the main producer in the exchange of energy in the food web. There are even small food webs that interconnect with other food webs creating a big food web. In food webs, you need producers that make their own food (ex:trees), consumers that eat other consumers and producers (ex:birds), and decomposers that break down dead consumers and producers (ex:mushrooms).
There are food webs in every ecosystem. All ecosystems get their energy from the sun, which is the main producer in the exchange of energy in the food web. There are even small food webs that interconnect with other food webs creating a big food web. In food webs, you need producers that make their own food (ex:trees), consumers that eat other consumers and producers (ex:birds), and decomposers that break down dead consumers and producers (ex:mushrooms).

Different food webs

I am researching the food web of the Loggerhead Shrike (bird). Almost every food web starts with the sun including this food web. It starts with the sun which is a producer. Then, trees use the sun’s energy to grow which is also a producer. Next, beetles and other bugs, which are consumers, use the tree’s energy. Then, a consumer which is a Loggerhead Shrike eats the bugs, which are also consumers. Next, the Magpie eats the Loggerhead Shrikes, and they are both consumers. Then, the fox eats the Magpie, they are also consumers. Then, the mushrooms, a decomposer, breaks down the excess from the foxes body. The mushrooms create nutrients for the tree and the cycle repeats itself.

We’re learning about ecosystems in science. Ecosystems are communities of plants and animals and their surroundings. An ecosystem consists of; decomposers, which break up dead things in the soil (ex: worms),producers, which make their own food (ex:trees),and consumers, which eat producers and other consumers (ex: a coyote). Also in ecosystems, they have biotic factors which are things that are alive or were once alive and abiotic factors which are things that have never been alive. All these animals make up an ecosystem and within that ecosystem, there are multiple mini ecosystems that use the same animals (producers, consumers and decomposers in that order like a food chain) in the larger ecosystem that forms an interconnected food web.

So, I came up with the idea of chicks! Chicks can be used to study ecosystems and what animals need in that ecosystem. We could also track their behaviors and habits in a log. Or, we could study chicks on a food web and life cycles to find out how they contribute to ecosystems by eating other animals or other animals eating the chickens. So, I’m trying to convince my teacher to get (fertilized) chicken eggs in a program called Hatch a Chick program which is made by a family owned farm called Two Little Acres Homestead. If we did this, we would get everything you need to hatch chicks from eggs and raise chicks for two weeks. I even got one of my classmates on board with it. I did a ton of research to find this program but the cost is the only issue. So we are going to see our friend, Amanda, who raises chickens to see if she can answer our questions and find a lower cost solution. Now I just got to convince my teacher, so what do you think? Are you for or against raising chicks? Let me know.

The Earth’s atmosphere is like a big blanket of nitrogen and oxygen gases protecting Earth. The ozone layer absorbs the sun’s rays protecting the Earth from burning up. The atmosphere uses the sun to stay warm, that’s called the greenhouse effect. It has 5 main layers: the Exosphere  is the last and thinnest layer,the Thermosphere is next it has the thin air can can get very hot there,the Mesosphere that’s where most meteors burn up, the Stratosphere gets it’s heat from the ozone layer and it is where weather balloons float, the Troposphere is the last layer before earth this is where we live and most planes fly. 

What would happen if the atmosphere disappeared? Since the atmosphere is made of nitrogen and oxygen, we wouldn’t be able to breathe. Us and everything except small bacteria and organisms would burn up inside almost instantly and kill everything.The temperature on Earth would go up. All the water on Earth would boil including oceans, lakes, and all other bodies of water. The things that are not living (houses,cars,etc) would burn from the sun’s harmful radiation including our lifeless bodies. There would be no sound and the meteors that normally burn up in the Mesosphere would hit Earth.

Did you know that there is already a small hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica! If that hole got bigger, it could melt the ice in Antarctica which would cause the sea levels to rise leaving all oceanfront cities to flood. We use all kinds of harmful chemicals but thankfully, in the 1980s the United States and all the countries in the world signed the Montreal Protocol then later, we signed the Kigali Treaty banning harmful chemicals that combine with ozone molecules causing it to break.

 We need to come together and try to stop climate change! If we try to not use harmful chemicals, we can help the ozone layer from depleting and one day disappearing completely. If the ozone layer one day disappeared the human species would be no more, so we need to ban harmful chemicals causing climate change, global warming and the breaking of the ozone layer.

This week I read Nancy Drew, The Haunted Bridge by, Carolyn Keene. This is just the 15th of the 56 Nancy Drew books in the series! If you like mystery and adventure books, you’ll love the Nancy Drew series with the suspenseful and cliff hanging chapters.

In this book, Nancy Drew and her two friends Bess Marvin and George Fayne accompany her father Carson Drew. He is a lawyer and Nancy is a detective so she often helps her father on cases. On a business trip while the girls are there they get caught up in a mystery, about the “haunted” bridge but Nancy discovers that the mystery is really just a scarecrow. The case is a jewel theft, while Nancy is there she enters a golf tournament with a suspected thief, as a partner but before the tournament, Nancy sprains her hand! After a few days of tracking down a possible crook, Nancy discovers that the suspected thief is actually a victim of blackmail. A jeweled compact was lost after her house burned down. But, the women who was blackmailing her was actually the thief!

I thought this was a good book and would definitely recommend Nancy Drew The Haunted Bridge by,Carolyn Keene. I liked the plot, and thought there was a good twist at the end. I would rate this book a four out of five stars.

By: Sterling

Hi I’m Sterling! I am in the 5th grade. On my free time I enjoy reading, doing art, sewing and cheer! (I also know how to play the flute) In school my favorite subject is either ELA (English language arts) or social studies. I am an only child but I have a dog named Winston (picture below!) and have a big extended family I am a good student and love learning.