Order the chain
The living things of a chain in a jumble: pupils number them from the producer to the last consumer. 3 to 5 links depending on the level.
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Teaching guide: food chains, food webs and ecosystems
Who eats whom is the way into ecosystems: from the first food chains in Grade 3 to energy pyramids in secondary school. This free food chain worksheet generator uses five ecosystems (woodland, river, sea, savanna and Mediterranean woodland), each with its food web drawn, and takes every answer from the arrows printed on the sheet.
- For
- Elementary 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th · Middle & High 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th (ages 8-15)
- Subject
- Natural Sciences › Nature
- Includes
- Student sheet and answer key
- Format
- A4, to print or save as PDF; new exercises every time
- Price
- Free, no sign-up
- Available in
- Catalan, Spanish, English
Student worksheet 
Answer key Producers and consumers
Tick whether each living thing is a producer, herbivore or carnivore; then omnivores and decomposers too, and at level 3 write it with no options.
Trophic levels
Producer, primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary consumer for each link of a chain, with the words in a box at level 1.
Read a food web
What each animal eats, what eats it, the producers, the chain between two living things and, in secondary, how many chains the web has.
If a living thing disappears
Which animals lose food, which are no longer eaten, which are left with nothing and, at level 3, everything that would end up disappearing and the chains that would break.
Energy pyramid
The 10 % rule: the energy of each level from one given value, with decimals and percentages at level 3. Answer key on its own sheets.
Frequently asked questions about the food chain worksheets
Which way do the arrows of a food chain point?
From the living thing that is eaten to the one that eats it: grass → rabbit → fox. The arrow shows where matter and energy go. Every food web sheet repeats this in its key.
Which grades are these worksheets for?
Food chains and producers and consumers start in Grade 3; trophic levels, food webs and what happens when a living thing disappears in Grades 5 and 6; the energy pyramid with the 10 % rule in secondary school. Each exercise has three levels, and each level shows its grades.
Can an answer have more than one solution?
No. Every answer comes from the web drawn on the sheet: what an animal eats are the arrows that point to it, and what happens when one disappears is decided with the arrows, not guesses. Pupils are only asked the diet (herbivore, carnivore, omnivore) of living things textbooks agree on: the fox or the crab are left out of that exercise.
Which ecosystems are there?
Woodland, river, sea, savanna and Mediterranean woodland, each with ten to twelve living things drawn. Choose one or mix them; at level 1 the webs are smaller.
How is the energy pyramid worked out?
With the 10 % rule: each level gets a tenth of the energy of the level below (the rest is used to live or lost as heat). If the producer has 10,000 kJ, the primary consumer has 1,000 and the secondary consumer 100. At levels 2 and 3 the given value may be at any level.
Can I mix them with other science worksheets?
Yes. Add exercises from other generators to the same sheet, such as animal classification or natural cycles, and print them with the answer key.
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