Energy Loss Between Levels

ScienceEcosystems & HabitatsAges 11–12

Explain how energy is transferred between trophic levels in a food chain, why energy is lost at each stage, and use pyramids of biomass/numbers to represent this

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Teaching Table

Set out your lesson

Practise the bounded task in Energy Loss Between Levels; see exact limits before inferring broader coverage.

Activity

Can interpret a labelled quantity and simple percentages; energy and biomass are different quantities.

Policy

Exact directed source edges retained; earlier authorship is not learner attainment.

Materials

These supplied stage cards
Scrap paper and pencil; oral/pointing response where appropriate

Sequence

Read readiness and decide on support without treating prerequisite authoring as learner readiness.
Open Show first and explain its model.
Use Guided Try with support and its separate adult key.
Close Show and guided keys before Try, unless this Try is explicitly supported.
Reflect on an actual attempt, including help used.

No Printer

Use the supplied screen cards; copying the exact task to paper is optional, not required.

Privacy

Use only invented scenarios and optional anonymous local notes. Do not request names, photos, family finances, medical data, accounts or uploads. Stop uncomfortable physical activity.

Use the complete materials on screen or print only the current sheet. Keep adult guidance out of learner view. Retain an earlier model only when the current step supplies it as context.

Teaching limits and safe use

These are finite task opportunities, not proof of mastery. Record what was attempted and what support was used.

Fictional biomass and energy models; no measured ecosystem efficiency. Universal 10% and a strict five-level limit are not asserted.

Use only invented scenarios and optional anonymous local notes. Do not request names, photos, family finances, medical data, accounts or uploads. Stop uncomfortable physical activity.

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Entire curriculum

1590 concepts · 8 subjects

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Teaching approaches

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Selected Default Gakuva

Practise the bounded task in Energy Loss Between Levels; see exact limits before inferring broader coverage.

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Learning resources

External links for extra practice. They do not replace Gakuva’s teaching approach.

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Check understanding

Explains that only about 10% of energy passes from one trophic level to the next
Constructs a pyramid of biomass from data and explains its shape
Identifies where energy is lost at each trophic level (heat, movement, waste)
Explains why food chains rarely have more than five trophic levels

“If your child was asked why there are so many more plants than foxes in a field, could they explain how energy gets lost at every step of a food chain and what that means for the size of each population?”

Curriculum record

Type: Conceptual
Subject: Science
Domain: Ecosystems & Habitats
Age range: Ages 11–12

Standards

ngss-ms:MS-LS2-1ngss-ms:MS-LS2-4uk-nc-2013:KS3.Sci.Bio.Ecosystem.1