Worksheet

High Ridge Trail: Judge the Energy Panels

Judge mountain-trail panel designs and build models that trace animals’ food energy back to sunlight.

Grade 5ScienceInteractive · Printable

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Single worksheet
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1 NGSS standard
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14 questions
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Details

Format: Interactive · Printable
Grade: Grade 5
Subject: Science
Question types: Multiple choice, Circle the answer, Sorting, Short answer, Drawing

About this worksheet

What students practice

Students use models to trace energy in animals’ food back to sunlight.
Students evaluate whether models show energy passing from plants through animals.
Students connect animals’ food energy to movement, growth, repair, and keeping warm.

How to use

Read the evidence together, then have students judge the panel designs independently. Discuss arrow meanings before students draw their own model.

Curriculum

NGSS standard covered

5-PS3-1

Use models to show that the energy in animals' food was once energy from the sun.

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High Ridge Trail: Judge the Energy Panels

Compare trail-panel designs and model where animals get their energy.

1. Gather Evidence for a Model

Read the trail report. Use its evidence to answer the questions. In an energy model, an arrow points from an energy source toward the living thing receiving that energy.

A New Panel at High Ridge

The High Ridge mountain trail crosses an open meadow before reaching a rocky rest stop. A trail crew is designing a panel about the animals visitors may see there. The panel must do more than name the animals. It must help visitors follow the energy in an animal’s food back to its earlier source. The crew collects feeding observations and science notes before choosing a design.

During several visits, observers watch ground squirrels eat grass leaves and grass seeds. They see grasshoppers chew grass leaves. Robins catch and eat grasshoppers. On another visit, a hawk catches and eats a ground squirrel. These observations describe some feeding links in this meadow. They are not a complete list of everything each animal eats. The crew will build models of the particular links recorded here.

The crew’s plant notes explain that green plants use light from the sun to make sugars. Energy from the light becomes stored energy in the food the plants make. Some of that food is stored in seeds. Roots take in water and materials from soil, but those materials are not the sunlight energy used to make food. A seed still contains stored food energy when it is carried into a shaded place.

The animal notes explain that eating provides animals with food containing stored energy. Animals use food energy for movement, growth, repairing their bodies, and keeping warm. For example, a ground squirrel uses energy while running between rocks and while growing larger. A robin uses energy to repair an injured wing. A hawk uses energy to keep its body warm while resting on a cold morning. The animals in this report do not make food from sunlight.

The designers may use boxes, labels, and arrows. Each arrow must show the direction that energy passes, not which animal is chasing another. The crew has not measured how much energy passes along any feeding link. Visitors should be able to understand the model without mistaking an arrow for an animal’s path across the meadow.

Which panel correctly traces the energy in the hawk’s food through the observed ground-squirrel feeding link?

A. Sun → ground squirrel → grass → hawk
B. Sun → grass → ground squirrel → hawk
C. Grass → sun → ground squirrel → hawk
D. Sun → grass → hawk → ground squirrel

Select the two observations that together support the feeding part of the model grass → ground squirrel → hawk.

A ground squirrel eats grass seeds.A ground squirrel runs between rocks.A hawk eats a ground squirrel.A hawk rests on a cold morning.

How should the panel connect the robin’s food energy to grass?

A. Show energy passing from grass to a grasshopper, then to the robin.
B. Show energy passing from the robin to a grasshopper, then to grass.
C. Show energy passing from grass to a ground squirrel, then to the robin.
D. Show energy passing from the robin to grass, then to a grasshopper.

One designer draws Soil → grass → ground squirrel and labels it “Where the squirrel’s food energy began.” Which revision best matches the science notes?

A. Replace grass with water to show what roots take in.
B. Reverse the arrows to show energy returning to soil.
C. Replace Soil with Sun to show the earlier energy source.
D. Remove grass to show soil supplying the squirrel directly.

The panel will include examples of how animals use food energy. Sort each example by its main energy use.

A ground squirrel dashes from one rock to another.A young ground squirrel’s body gets larger.A resting hawk maintains its body warmth on a cold morning.A robin’s injured wing heals.

Movement	Growth or repair	Keeping warm

2. Test the Panel Designs

Judge each design using the trail report. Choose the explanation that best represents energy.

A designer draws hawk → ground squirrel because “the hawk goes after the squirrel.” What should the crew do when making an energy model?

A. Keep the arrow because it shows the hunter’s travel direction.
B. Reverse the arrow because food energy passes into the hawk.
C. Remove the arrow because hunting does not involve food energy.
D. Add an arrow both ways because each animal feeds the other.

A panel shows Sun → hawk and says, “Sunlight supplies the hawk’s energy for flight.” Which replacement better explains the food energy used for flight?

A. Sun → rocks → hawk; the hawk receives food energy while perching.
B. Sun → air → hawk; the hawk receives food energy while breathing.
C. Sun → hawk → grass; the hawk passes sunlight energy into plants.
D. Sun → grass → ground squirrel → hawk; feeding transfers stored energy.

A ground squirrel carries a grass seed into a shaded crack and eats it there. Which explanation should the panel give?

A. The seed still provides stored food energy that came from sunlight.
B. The seed loses its stored food energy when direct sunlight is blocked.
C. The seed’s food energy changes its original source from sunlight to rock.
D. The squirrel replaces the seed’s stored food energy with energy from shade.

A designer wants to label the hawk’s box, “Uses food energy when flying, but not when resting.” Why should the crew revise this label?

A. A resting hawk gets its food energy directly from sunlight.
B. A resting hawk sends its food energy back into its prey.
C. A resting hawk may still use food energy to keep warm.
D. A resting hawk stores sunlight in feathers to make food.

10.

The crew approves this model: Sun → grass → ground squirrel → hawk. Which visitor question would require measurements the crew has not collected?

A. Which animal receives food energy by eating a ground squirrel?
B. How much food energy passes from a ground squirrel to a hawk?
C. Which living thing first stores energy from sunlight in food?
D. What energy source appears at the beginning of this pathway?

3. Improve and Build a Model

Use the evidence to judge changes. Then create a model and defend an explanation.

11.

The panel has room for one of these designs:
Design A: Sun → ground squirrel → hawk
Design B: Sun → grass → ground squirrel → hawk
Why is Design B a better model of the food-energy pathway?

A. It shows that grass stores energy from sunlight before the squirrel eats it.
B. It shows that grass takes the squirrel’s food energy and passes it to the sun.
C. It shows that the hawk eats grass before it catches a squirrel.
D. It shows that adding boxes increases the energy available to the hawk.

New observation: On a later visit, an observer sees a ground squirrel eat a grasshopper. The earlier feeding observations are still valid.

12.

The crew is updating a model that already shows Sun → grass → ground squirrel → hawk. Select the two additional arrows needed to show another route from grass to the ground squirrel through a grasshopper.

Grasshopper → grassGrass → grasshopperGround squirrel → grasshopperGrasshopper → ground squirrelSun → ground squirrel

13.

Design one connected energy model for the panel. Include the sun, grass, a ground squirrel, a grasshopper, and a robin. Show the original observed routes from the sun to the ground squirrel and from the sun to the robin. Use labeled boxes and arrows. Beside the robin, write one way it uses food energy.

14.

A visitor says, “The robin’s food energy began in the grasshopper, not in the sun.” Explain why this claim leaves out part of the pathway. Use at least two feeding or plant facts from the report.