Trophic Levels Lab Worksheet
Instructions: In this lab activity, we will investigate the “best” food option based on your
investigative focus: nutrition, energy, availability, or environmental impact. Be sure to review
the grading rubric for the lab activity before submitting your lab report to your instructor once it
is completed.
Title:
optimal food in farm environment
Objective(s):
determine best food based on energy
Background:
For the purposes of this lab activity, you make the following assumptions:
● One farmer consumes one-half (0.5) chicken per day for a year
● One chicken consumes 40 grasshoppers per day
● 1,200 grasshoppers have a mass of one kilogram
● One grasshopper requires 25 grams of soybeans per year
● One human requires 750 grasshoppers per day
● Soybeans have 3.2 calories per gram
Procedure:
A list of materials and summary of steps is provided for you.
Materials:
● Calculator
● Paper
● Pencil/pen
● Digital charts or drawing tools (found in MS Word)
Summary of Steps:
1. Identify the producer(s) and consumer(s) in this farm scenario, based on the
background information. Also identify any herbivores, carnivores, or omnivores
that are present. More than one term might apply to an organism. List them in
Table 1.
2. Identify two biotic and two abiotic factors that would impact this farm ecosystem.
List these in Table 2.
3. Perform the calculations expected in the calculations section of your lab
worksheet. All work or explanations of how you determined the answers must be
provided to receive partial to full credit.
4. Answer the reflection questions after completing your calculations. All work or
explanations of how you determined the answers must be provided to receive
partial to full credit.
Data:
Complete the table to organize the data collected in this lab. Don’t forget to record measurements
with the correct units and number of significant figures, if applicable.
Table 1
Primary Secondary Tertiary
Producers soybean
Consumers grasshopper (herbivore) chicken human (carnivore)
Table 2
Factor 1 Factor 2
Biotic fungi bacteria
Abiotic sunlight temperature
Calculations:
Perform the following calculations in the data section of your lab worksheet. Show all work.
A. Calculate the number of grasshoppers a chicken eats per year.
40 x 365 = 14,600 grasshoppers
B. How many grasshoppers are needed for a year’s supply of chickens for the farmer?
0.5 x 365 = 182.5 chicken x 40 = 7300 grasshoppers
C. What is the total mass, in kilograms, of the grasshoppers needed to feed all the chickens
for one year?
7300 / 1200 = 6.08 kg
D. How many kilograms of soybeans are needed to feed all the grasshoppers for one year?
7300 x 25 = 182,500 grams of soybean
182.5 kg of soybeans
Post-Reflection Questions
Answer the post-reflection questions using what you have learned from the lesson and your
experimental data. It will be helpful to refer to your class notes. Answer questions in complete
sentences. Show all work for calculations.
1. Suppose the farmer chose to eat grasshoppers instead of chickens. How many people
could the grasshoppers feed, compared to the one person that the chicken fed?
0.5 chicken = eats 20 grasshoppers
human = 750 grasshopper
750/20= 37.5 chickens
750 grasshoppers = 37.5 chickens = feed 37.5 people
Eating chickens by feeding them grasshoppers is more efficient than eating grasshoppers.
2. The farmer needs to consume 3,500 calories per day. If he ate only soybeans instead of
the chickens or grasshoppers, how many people would his soybean crop feed?
3500/3.2 = 1093.75 grams of soybean
to get 3500 calories by only eating soybean, needs to eat 1093.75 grams of soybean
1 grasshopper = 25 grams of soybean
1093.75/25 = 43.75 grasshopper
43.75/40 = 1.09 chicken
can feed about 2 people a day
3. Create a Biomass Pyramid using the data you have developed up to this point. At each
trophic level, record the biomass of the organisms over a period of one year needed to
support one farmer. Assume that a farmer weighs 75 kg and a chicken weighs 1.5 kg. The
pyramid may be set up like this:
Chicken: 365 x 0.5 x 1.5 = 273.75 kg
Gh: 40 x 365 x 365 / 1200 = 4440 kg
Soybeans: 14600 x 365 x 25/1000 = 133,225 kg
4. Should people eat at a lower trophic level? Outline three pros and three cons of eating
only plants and plant products.
Pros: planet can sustain more people
Cons: if no hen, grasshopper population will increase very fast, decreasing soybean population
