AUTHENTIC ASSESSMENT: Your Species, Your Choice
Think of a cartoon show or a character. Create a food web that involves your chosen character (can use characters from the show or from other shows – it just has to make sense). The food web should have at least 4 cartoon characters (species). The only exception is producers (plants/algae/phytoplankton) since you may not find a cartoon character for it, so you can just use a graphic. Make sure your food web starts with a producer.
You may use Canva (Links to an external site.), Piktochart (Links to an external site.), PowerPoint or any other tool that you are familiar with to create your infographic. Your infographic should encompass the concepts in a visually pleasing way (including photos of the characters chosen). An infographic is a collection of imagery, charts, and minimal text that gives an easy-to-understand overview of a topic, typically on one page not multiple slides (learn how to change the size of a PowerPoint slide (Links to an external site.) to make it all one page). Here is an example template (you must fill the blanks with the correct information and remove reminder bubbles). This example is using characters from SpongeBob SquarePants. I checked each organism to make sure that it eats the next in real life. You may use this as a template but you may not use the same characters.
For the infographic, you should:
- Classify each species in the food web as a producer, herbivore, omnivore, or carnivore (don’t use decomposers or detritivores).
- Make sure that the species you select are appropriate for the ecosystem and that they would eat (or be eaten) by the other species in your example. I will check!!
- Create an energy/trophic pyramid using the organisms from your food web. Label the 1) producers, 2) primary consumers, 3) secondary consumers, and 4) tertiary consumers. Make sure EACH trophic level is represented.
- Summarize the 10% energy rule (should be in your own words).
- Apply the 10% energy rule to your pyramid. Start with 5000 kJ at the producer level. How many kJ are available at each subsequent trophic level? Thoroughly explain in your own words what it means in relation to energy and heat.