Trace the Ripple Effect With Food Chain Disruption Worksheets

Help your students explore the cause-and-effect relationships within ecosystems with this set of printable Food Chain Disruption Worksheets. Using a flowchart format, students will investigate what happens when a single food source is removed from a habitat. Each of these Food Chain Disruption Worksheets begins with a scenario, such as:

• “Insects are removed due to pesticide use.”
• “Rodents disappear after a flood event.”

Students then work through connected boxes to identify which animals lose a food source, predict population changes, and describe how producers or decomposers are affected.

Predict and Analyse Changes in an Ecosystem

These worksheets encourage critical thinking and scientific reasoning as students observe and predict the effects of a single change within a typically healthy ecosystem. A reflection question on each page asks students to explain why removing one organism can affect an entire habitat, helping them connect individual organisms to the ecosystem as a whole. 

We have included three ecosystems for your students to analyze, including:

• Desert Ecosystem
• Pond Ecosystem
• Grassland Ecosystem

Download Your Food Chain Disruption Activity Sheets

This set of Food Chain Disruption Activity Sheets includes three no-prep worksheets for independent practice, homework, or small-group science activities. 

This resource is available in both PDF and editable Google Slides format.  To get your copy, click the dropdown arrow on the download button and choose your preferred file type.

This resource was created by Brittany Kellogg, a teacher in Ohio and Teach Starter Collaborator.

More Food Chain & Environmental Impact Activities

Pair these worksheets with additional environmental impact activities to build the perfect Life Science unit. We recommend checking these out before you go!

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