Trophic Levels 

Hannah Root 
60 minutes  
 
Goal:​ Students will understand how the consumer-resource relationships in an ecosystem are 
organized into trophic levels. 
 
Objectives 
● Students will create a working model of a New England food web and use it to trace different 
types of disturbances 
 
Materials 
● Projector for a slideshow 
● (per group of 2) Small whiteboard and variety of colors of whiteboard markers (could substitute 
chalkboard/chalk; paper/pencil at last resort - there will be a lot of erasing and rewriting) 
● Scratch paper 
 
Grouping: ​We will be doing work in pairs. 
 
Procedure 
Do Now (5min): Rank these animals from most to least important using your own values for what’s 
important  
 
Introduction (10min): mini lecture on trophic levels then, hand out materials 
● Food web connection 
● Shape, arrows, and vocab (producer, consumer) 
 
Series of challenges (35): 
1. On your whiteboard, draw a food web using this list of organisms (see slide) (10min) 
a. Include lines and arrows 
b. Arrange into “trophic levels” 
2. DISTURBANCE time! (we’ll start with an easy one and get harder as we go along) (15min) 
a. Model what would happen if there was a drop in the population of foxes 
b. Remember the squirrelpocalypse of 2018? Use your model to demonstrate what 
happened 
c. What would happen if a beaver family moved in and dammed up the river? 
d. What would happen if a human built a road/house/dug a mine/etc 
 
Wrap up (5min): R ​ evisit your ranking from the beginning of class. What would you change? Explain 
why and turn it in before leaving. 
 
Helpful References 
https://newengland.com/today/living/new-england-environment/the-2018-new-england-squirrel-apoc
alypse/ 
https://www.martinezbeavers.org/wordpress/tag/trophic-levels-and-beavers/ 
https://wildlandsnetwork.org/keystone-species-trophic-cascades/