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Grade 5 · unit review

Review: Food chains, matter, and model boundaries

Trace energy and matter while recognizing the limits of a food-chain diagram.

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Bring the unit skills together

Use these 4 new cases to check your reasoning. Choices are temporary and are not saved to an account, sent to staff or recorded as school grades. Download your current review choices before leaving or reloading.

Unit review questions
1. In a sunlight → algae → snail model, where did the algae’s stored food energy begin?
2. An arrow key says matter moves: nutrients → plant → animal waste → decomposers → nutrients. What does it show?
3. A model assumes one fifth of plant growth energy becomes herbivore growth, then one tenth becomes predator growth. From 500 plant units, what reaches predator growth?
4. Seeds and leaves feed mice; mice feed owls. Remove leaves from this diagram. Which claim fits?

The download contains your current choices and any checked feedback. Keep the separate transfer-task work in your own document; downloading its instructions does not mark it complete.

Use the skills in a new task

Explain a fictional garden model to a planner. Sunlight supports grass and berry plants; both feed rabbits, which feed foxes. A separate matter map returns some waste nutrients through decomposers to soil. A supplied growth model assigns 800 units to grass, with one quarter becoming rabbit growth and one tenth of that fox growth. Calculate the grass route, then remove grass from the web and state a limit.

Work on paper or in your own document. Explain the choices you made.

  • Trace sunlight through a producer to consumers with food-to-consumer arrows.
  • Distinguish cycling nutrients from flowing energy.
  • Calculate 800 → 200 → 20 using the supplied fractions.
  • Show the remaining berry route without claiming exact animal counts.
Compare with a model response

Sunlight → grass → rabbit → fox is one energy route. The nutrient return through decomposers tracks matter, rather than an endless energy loop. The stated grass-growth model gives 800 × 1/4 = 200 rabbit units and 200 × 1/10 = 20 fox units. Removing grass leaves berry plant → rabbit → fox. We know a shown route remains, but not whether its food amount supports particular population sizes.

A different response can also meet the criteria. Compare the evidence and reasoning, rather than copying the wording.