“Web of Life”

Your Mission

Become a “Webmeister”! Learn about the real World Wide Web—the web of life that connects all Earth’s living things.

The Web’s Ingredients: Ecosystems

Like everything else, the web of life is made up of parts. These parts are called ecosystems. An ecosystem is a community of plants and animals and their physical environment. In an ecosystem, everything has a role. When something is removed, watch out! Read about an ecosystem from a spider’s point of view in “Web of Life” at Kids’ Planet (http://www.kidsplanet.org/wol).

The Elements of an Ecosystem

The parts of an ecosystem are called elements. Some elements are living things, like plant and animal species. Some elements are nonliving things, like sun, rain, air, water, and soil.

Ecosystems Close to Home

List some of the elements in the ecosystem of a habitat in your area. Your teacher will help you with this list, which might include mammals, birds, plants (including trees!), reptiles, and amphibians. Illustrations are optional—but welcome!

Building a Web: It’s Elemental!

Take on a new identity: Find out what it’s like to be an element in an ecosystem.

• Form a circle with your classmates and hold on to the sign your teacher gives you. Each sign will bear the name of an element in the ecosystem. Get ready to carry the ball—a ball of yarn, that is.



• Each of you will be a different element (a tree, water, a deer). Your teacher will start the ball rolling by calling on, say, “rabbit,” and asking a question like “What does a rabbit eat?”



• When your teacher calls your element name, it’s time for you to carry the ball. (When “clover” is called, for example, a student will pass the ball of yarn to the “clover” student while still holding on to the yarn or string.)



• Keep passing the ball of yarn till your classroom looks like ... a web!

Breaking the Web

Webs are strong, but they can be broken. What happens to your web if something is removed?

• Stand in your element circle, and, with your teacher’s help, consider certain situations.



• If a dam is built nearby, say, the student who represents water should tug on the yarn. Then each student who feels the original tug should tug on the yarn, and so on. (Another example: If crops are planted too often in the same place and the soil loses its nutrients, the student representing soil should tug the yarn, and all the students who feel that tug should tug the yarn.)



• What happened to the web? Did it become tangled?

See how fragile an ecosystem can be? Of course, when the game is over you can step out of the tangled web of yarn and go back to your seat. But plants and animals can’t.

Mending the Web

Learn more about endangered species of plants and animals and the habitats in which they live. Then tell other people what you’ve learned and how important conservation is.

Other Activities

• As you have seen, all plants and animals need a combination of elements to survive. That’s all plants and animals, no matter how big or strong. In fact, the tiger, one of the world’s most powerful animals, is endangered, chiefly because its habitat has been changed or destroyed. To find out more about this endangered animal, ask a “talking” tiger at the 5 Tigers site (http://www.5tigers.org/talkback/habitat.htm).
  
  
• Color an endangered animal at the nationalgeographic.com Okavango site (http://www.nationalgeographic.com/okavango/color.html) and send it by e-mail to a friend. Tell your friend why you’re concerned about cheetahs, tigers, or another endangered species.
  
  
• As a class, talk with your teacher about what you can do to help endangered species, and to help others become “World Wide Web of Life” meisters!
  
  

“Web of Life” activity adapted from the 1996 Geography Awareness Week teacher’s handbook. © 1996 National Geographic Society. Handbook activity adapted, in turn, from “Sharing Nature with Children,” by Joseph Cornell, Dawn Publications, 800 545 7475.

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