How Energy Moves Through an Ecosystem
When students hear “food,” they likely think of what they ate for lunch. So in the context of teaching about energy and matter in ecosystems, you need to make sure that they can translate what food means to different types of organisms. For humans, food might be a hamburger. For an owl, it’s a mouse. For a dung beetle, it’s poop!
Watch this video, which follows penguin parents as they search for the kind of food they need to sustain their young. As you watch, think about how the video effectively demonstrates why penguins are choosy eaters.
| Keyboard Shortcut | Action |
|---|---|
| Space | Pause/Play video playback |
| Enter | Pause/Play video playback |
| m | Mute/Unmute video volume |
| Up and Down arrows | Increase and decrease volume by 10% |
| Right and Left arrows | Seek forward or backward by 5 seconds |
| 0-9 | Fast seek to x% of the video. |
| f | Enter or exit fullscreen. (Note: To exit fullscreen in flash press the Esc key. |
| c | Press c to toggle captions on or off |
Video: Matter and Energy in Penguins’ Aquatic Ecosystem
Take Notes
After watching the video, respond to the following prompt in the space provided. Then complete the sentence starters in the table below. You may watch the video again if needed.
- Based on what you learned in the video, identify at least two properties that might make anchovies a rich, high-quality food source for penguins.
How did the video spark your thinking about how energy moves through an ecosystem?
