Energy Makes It All Go

All living things are called __________ .

To do anything, like move, make something, or blooming, all living things need ______

You can feed a plant with store bought plant food.

Plants don’t have to eat, because they make their own food.

Plants don’t have mouths for eating, but they do have tiny openings in their leaves that take in gases from the air. One of the gases in air is called _______ ________, and plants use molecules of ________ ______ as one of the ingredients for making their food.

The other ingredient plants use for making their food is ________ molecules, which plants take in through their roots.

One reason why plants are so important in an ecosystem is they bring ______ into the ecosystem. All animals need to eat food to survive, but animals can’t make their own food—they depend on plants to do it for them. Only plants (and a few other plant-like organisms, such as algae) can make __________ that stores energy from sunlight.

Which one of these is NOT an herbivore?

Which one of these is NOT a carnivore?

Which animal is NOT a omnivores?

A mushroom gets energy by breaking down dead organisms and droppings. Ecologists call organisms that do this _________. They use dead things as food matter.

Many ecologists group worms with decomposers. Worms eat fallen leaves, dead organisms, and droppings that they find in the soil, but tiny bacteria living in the worms’ guts are the ones actually breaking down the worms’ food into nutrients. Do you think worms are decomposers?

Do you think worms are decomposers? (This is a poll.)

This vulture is a scavenger that doesn’t kill other animals, but eats the meat of animals that have already died. Some ecologists group scavengers with decomposers, while some group them with carnivores or omnivores. Where do you think scavengers should be grouped?

Which two statements from the book supports the idea that the Venus fly trap is a plant and not a carnivore?

Living things may be carnivores, herbivores, omnivores, decomposers, or plants, but the source of their energy is almost always the same—the ____!