Learning Map
ScienceEcosystems & Habitatsusually ages 8–9

Food Chains & Energy Transfer

Construct and interpret food chains identifying producers, predators, and prey, and understand energy transfer between trophic levels

How to tell they’ve got it

Tick these off as you see them — no test required.

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Try this together

Can your child build a food chain for a woodland and point out which organisms are producers, which are predators, and which are prey?

Where this sits on the map

Stuck here? Check the skills it builds on first. Confident? Here’s what it unlocks.

Builds on
Simple Food Chainsages 6–7Must understand simple food chains before constructing complex ones with producer/predator/prey terminology
Ecology Vocabularyages 8–10Constructing and interpreting food chains requires producer, consumer, predator, prey vocabulary
Animal Nutritionages 7–8Nutrition knowledge supports understanding why animals occupy different trophic levels
Ocean Food Websages 7–9Ocean food webs build on curriculum food chains with trophic levels
Rainforest Food Websages 7–9Rainforest food webs enrich curriculum food chains topic (exploratory age 7 -> curriculum age 8)
Food Chains & Energy Transferthis skill · ages 8–9
Unlocks
Matter Cycling in Ecosystemsages 10–11Must understand food chains with producers/predators before modelling matter cycling through ecosystem
Food Webs & Interdependenceages 11–12KS3 food webs and ecosystem interdependence extends KS2 introduction to food chains with producers, predators and prey
Insects in ecosystemsages 9–11Curriculum food-chains knowledge (producers/predators/prey) provides foundation for understanding full insect ecosystem roles

solid = must come firstdashed = helps

Curriculum alignment

Candidate matches to official curriculum codes — machine-suggested, unreviewed (v0.1).

Show candidate curriculum codes · 2 ACARA · 1 NSW · 3 VIC

Australian Curriculum v9 candidate

AC9S4U01high confidenceYear 4 · Science understanding

explain the roles and interactions of consumers, producers and decomposers within a habitat and how food chains represent feeding relationships

AC9S3U03low confidenceYear 3 · Science understanding

identify sources of heat energy and examine how temperature changes when heat energy is transferred from one object to another

NSW syllabus codes & stages only

ST2-DAT-01low confidenceScience and Technology K-6 · Stage 2

Victorian Curriculum 2.0 codes & levels only

VC2S4U03high confidenceScience · Levels 3 and 4 · Science Understanding strand
VC2S4U09low confidenceScience · Levels 3 and 4 · Science Understanding strand
VC2TDE6C02low confidenceDesign and Technologies · Levels 5 and 6 · Technologies Contexts strand

These are candidate alignments generated by semantic matching — machine-suggested and unreviewed (v0.1), not official or verified mappings. For official curriculum content see australiancurriculum.edu.au, curriculum.nsw.edu.au and f10.vcaa.vic.edu.au. Don’t rely on them for registration or compliance purposes.

Nearby on the map

Animal Groups & Survivalages 8–9 Changing Environmentsages 8–9 Classification Keysages 8–9 Ecology Vocabularyages 8–10

All Ecosystems & Habitats skills →