Mississippi Science BIO.5.4
The Standard
- BIO.5
- Students will Investigate and evaluate the interdependence of living organisms and their environment.
Develop and use models to describe the flow of energy and amount of biomass through food chains, food webs, and food pyramids.
2026 Mississippi College- and Career-Readiness Standards for Science · Interdependence of Organisms and Their Environments
Teacher's field guide
What This Standard Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students draw food chains and food webs with arrows showing energy moving from food to eater. They make pyramids that show how available energy and biomass change at each feeding level.
What Mastery Looks Like
- A student can trace several paths through a food web and label producers and consumers. They label energy and biomass separately on a pyramid, show that both generally decrease at higher levels, and explain that organisms use energy and release heat.
Common Misconceptions
- Students often point arrows toward the food instead of the eater. They may count organisms instead of measuring biomass, or think energy gets recycled. Some assume exactly 10% of energy passes at every step, though the fraction varies.
How to Assess It
- Exit ticket: Grass has 1,000 g of biomass and 10,000 kJ of available energy; grasshoppers have 100 g and 1,000 kJ; frogs have 10 g and 100 kJ. Draw a labeled chain and pyramid, then explain where much of the energy goes between levels.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give groups 100 counters for grass energy; pass 10 to grasshoppers and 1 to frogs, then arrange biomass cards labeled 1,000, 100, and 10 g.
Show a pond web with algae, insect larvae, minnows, and herons; ask why less energy and biomass are available to herons than to algae.
Give pairs cards for grass, rabbit, mouse, snake, and hawk; race to draw correct energy arrows and find two food chains.
Use a supermarket flyer showing corn and chicken; model corn as chicken feed, then trace energy and biomass from corn to chicken to people.
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Printable BIO.5.4 Worksheet
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Related Standards
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Develop and use a food chain model to classify organisms as producers, consumers, or decomposers. Trace the energy flow to explain how each group of organisms o...
- L.6.3.5
Develop and use food chains, webs, and pyramids to analyze how energy is transferred through an ecosystem from producers (autotrophs) to consumers (heterotrophs...
- FB.6.5
Use models to analyze the flow of energy through food chains, webs, and pyramids.
- ENV.1.3
Use models to explain why the flow of energy through an ecosystem can be illustrated by a pyramid with less energy available at the higher trophic levels compar...
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