Separate energy flow from carbon cycling
See this course’s project requirements
A food-web and carbon-cycle model explaining a fictional ecosystem disturbance, with a supported prediction and an alternative explanation.
Keep your working files in your own notebook or software. Save a private description, checklist, and work link in My Proof.
What to include
- Classify organism roles and nonliving conditions.
- Draw all supplied food-to-eater and decomposer links.
- Separate carbon cycling from energy flow and calculate the supplied fraction.
- Classify interactions from both partners’ stated effects.
- Trace a disturbance with an alternative food path.
- Write a bounded explanation of the supplied counts and complete changed cases.
Review and revise
Use these criteria to check your work and choose what to improve.
- Method: applies the course-specific rules to the supplied cases with visible intermediate work.
- Accuracy: results agree with the stated facts, units, boundaries and independent checks.
- Reasoning: explains why the result follows and identifies a limitation or unresolved question.
- Transfer: completes changed cases and revises the final project when a relevant assumption changes.
Want more background?
The idea in everyday life
Original simplified model: sunlight→grass; atmospheric carbon dioxide→grass carbon; grass→rabbit carbon; grass and rabbit dead material→fungi; grass, rabbit and fungi respiration→atmospheric carbon dioxide. Fictional energy accounting: grass stores 1,000 units; 100 units transfer to rabbits in the specified interval. This is a supplied transfer fraction, not a universal ten-percent law.
Energy enters many ecosystems as sunlight, moves through organisms and becomes dispersed heat; a continuing energy input is needed. Carbon matter can move among air, producers, consumers, dead material and soil. Photosynthesis incorporates carbon from carbon dioxide; respiration and decomposition can return carbon dioxide. Energy flow and matter cycling are related but distinct.
Separate energy flow from carbon cycling — worked practice
Energy enters many ecosystems as sunlight, moves through organisms and becomes dispersed heat; a continuing energy input is needed. Carbon matter can move among air, producers, consumers, dead material and soil. Photosynthesis incorporates carbon from carbon dioxide; respiration and decomposition can return carbon dioxide. Energy flow and matter cycling are related but distinct.
Original simplified model: sunlight→grass; atmospheric carbon dioxide→grass carbon; grass→rabbit carbon; grass and rabbit dead material→fungi; grass, rabbit and fungi respiration→atmospheric carbon dioxide. Fictional energy accounting: grass stores 1,000 units; 100 units transfer to rabbits in the specified interval. This is a supplied transfer fraction, not a universal ten-percent law.
1. 1. Trace
Draw one carbon cycle using the supplied arrows.
You should see: Air carbon→grass→rabbit→air carbon, with dead-material and fungi routes added.
2. 2. Contrast
Draw the sunlight-energy path separately.
You should see: Sunlight→grass→rabbit→dispersed heat; energy does not cycle back as new sunlight.
3. 3. Calculate
Find the supplied energy transfer fraction.
You should see: 100/1,000=0.10 or 10 percent for this record only.
4. 4. Bound
Explain why decomposers do not remove the need for input energy.
You should see: Matter can return to stores while usable energy becomes dispersed.
What to finish
Separate energy and carbon diagrams with one labeled transfer calculation.
Watch for this
The provided ratio is a teaching record. Different processes and conditions can have different efficiencies, so a fixed universal claim is unsupported.
How can I tell I understand it?
Recalculate a changed transfer while preserving the energy-versus-matter distinction.
Quick knowledge check
Answer all 3 questions. Get at least 2 right and the lesson completes automatically.
You’ll get an explanation for each answer. Signed in? Your results save to your account.
Pass the check. We’ll save the progress.
Answer all 3 questions above and get at least 2 right. You can review the explanations and try again.
Go to the knowledge checkTools, templates, and lesson sources
Tools and templates
Tools open in a new tab so you can keep your place here.
Sources and further reading
Explore the references behind this lesson.
Source & access notes · checked 2026-10-01
Web open/search showed the official page, its topic heading and relevant concept description. This is a content/source check, not a provider endorsement.
Access: Official page retrieved with the web reader on 2026-10-01; interactive tools and videos were not certified by retrieval.
Reuse: Original fictional teaching cases, calculations, questions and examples; link and short factual paraphrase only. No copied source exercises or illustrations.
Source & access notes · checked 2026-10-01
Web open/search showed the official page, its topic heading and relevant concept description. This is a content/source check, not a provider endorsement.
Access: Official page retrieved with the web reader on 2026-10-01; interactive tools and videos were not certified by retrieval.
Reuse: Original fictional teaching cases, calculations, questions and examples; link and short factual paraphrase only. No copied source exercises or illustrations.
Report a problem with this lesson
Tell us what went wrong. Please leave out personal information and private project contents.