Plants Make the Food Everything Else Eats

Lab Brief #9

🎯 Your mission

Predict it first. Then prove yourself right (or wrong).

⚡ The twist

Living things break the rules of non-living things — find the rule they break.

What you'll learn

Plants use sunlight to make their own food. Animals cannot do this, so every animal is eating a plant, or eating something that ate a plant. That is why plants are called producers.

Key words

producer
A living thing, such as a plant, that makes its own food using sunlight.
consumer
A living thing that eats other living things because it cannot make its own food.

Make a hypothesis first

Predict: what will happen to the plant if you change the water?

Say your guess out loud — then find out if you were right.

Get ready

🧰 What you need

picture cards
paper

⚠️ Safety first

Have an adult check your set-up before you start, and tidy everything away afterwards.

Step 1 of 4 · Read

Think about what you just learned: say what "producer" and "consumer" mean in your own words before you start.

Step 2 of 4 · Do

Sort pictures of ten living things into producers and consumers. Then trace any one consumer back through the chain until you reach a plant.

Step 3 of 4 · Observe

Record what actually happened, including anything that did not match what you expected.

Step 4 of 4 · Record

Write a conclusion that answers the question this lesson opened with, and state your uncertainty.

Question 1 of 2

Which living thing makes its own food?

How sure are you?😐 maybe

Question 2 of 2

Animals are called consumers because they:

How sure are you?😐 maybe

Mind = blown

🌳 Trees can talk to each other through underground fungus networks.

Nice work!

You got 0 of 2 right.

Next: What Happens When Something Dies All lessons

🎯

Next Smart Experiment

We'll pick an experiment that matches exactly how you're thinking right now.

✨ More to explore

🌍 Where you see this in real life: Your own body is doing this thousands of times every second.

🏆 Stretch challenge (try it this week): Find one thing about your body that's different from a friend's. Wonder why.

👨‍👩‍👧 For the dinner table: “Tell me something you noticed about your own body today.”

🌻Share card

Share this experiment

Send it to a parent who's looking for a 10-minute kitchen science win.

Plants Make the Food Everything Else Eats

Next Smart Experiment

Share this experiment

Plants Make the Food Everything Else Eats

Done with science? Try something else

Your Cart (0)