Your child comes home talking about producers and consumers, or with homework that asks them to draw a food chain. It’s a lovely topic, because Australia’s animals make such good examples. Here are food chains for kids in plain words: what a food chain is, what producers, consumers and decomposers do, which way the arrows go, Australian food chains you can draw together, and a backyard decomposer hunt.
What is a food chain?
A food chain shows who eats what. A fact sheet written for the WA Department of Education puts it like this: “A food chain shows what consumes what in an environment, that is, species that are linked to each other by what they eat.” It also shows how energy passes from one living thing to the next.
Here’s the Australian example from that fact sheet:
acacia → cicada → green tree frog → freshwater crocodile
Cicadas eat acacia, green tree frogs eat cicadas, and freshwater crocodiles eat frogs.
Which way do the arrows go in a food chain?
This is the part many children mix up. It feels natural to point the arrow from the crocodile to the frog (“the crocodile eats the frog”). But the same fact sheet is clear: “Arrows in a food chain always point in the same direction, from the species being eaten to the species doing the eating.” The arrow shows where the food, and its energy, goes next.
What are producers?
Producers make their own food, and in most food chains you’ll draw, they’re plants. The Australian National Botanic Gardens explains that plants “make their own food through photosynthesis”, combining “energy from the sun, carbon dioxide and water to make sugar, while releasing oxygen as a by-product.” Gum trees, acacias, grasses and vegetables in your garden are all producers.
The NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service puts it simply: “Producers are plants: Energy from the sun is trapped by plants and used to produce food in the form of leaves, flowers, fruit and woody stems.”
What are consumers? Herbivores, carnivores and omnivores
Animals are consumers, because they get their energy by eating other living things. The WA fact sheet sorts them into three groups: “carnivores only eat animals (meat)”, “herbivores only eat plants” and “omnivores eat animals and plants”. The Australian Museum’s animal pages give plenty of Australian examples.
| Animal | What it eats | Group |
|---|---|---|
| Koala | Leaves of certain eucalypts, plus some flowers and stems | Herbivore |
| Eastern grey kangaroo | Mainly grasses | Herbivore |
| Common wombat | Native grasses, sedges and rushes | Herbivore |
| Powerful owl | Mainly tree-dwelling mammals, especially ringtail possums and great gliders | Carnivore |
| Wedge-tailed eagle | Mostly dead animals, plus live rabbits, hares, lizards, birds and mammals | Carnivore |
| Emu | Fruits, seeds, plant shoots, insects and other small animals | Omnivore |
What are decomposers?
Decomposers are nature’s recyclers. When plants and animals die, decomposers break them down and return the goodness to the soil, ready for new plants. The Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria calls fungi “the primary decomposers of dead material that recycle carbon and essential nutrients in ecosystems.” The Queensland Government adds that “bacteria, fungi, worms and other burrowers” break down dead leaves and animal remains.
The NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service lists decomposers you might find in a forest: “worms, ants, springtails, slaters, bacteria, termites and fungi”. The mushrooms you see are only part of a fungus; hidden underneath are thread-like hyphae spreading through leaf litter and dead wood. Without decomposers, the same fact sheet says, “nutrients would be locked up and unavailable to plants.” That’s how food chains link to soil, which you can read about in our post on rocks and soil for kids.
Australian food chains to draw with your child
Every link in these chains is backed by the Australian Museum’s notes on what each animal eats, the WA fact sheet, or the decomposer facts above:
- grass → eastern grey kangaroo → dingo
- leaves → ringtail possum → powerful owl
- acacia → cicada → green tree frog → freshwater crocodile
- dead leaves → worm → tawny frogmouth (frogmouths eat worms, slugs and snails)
Then join two chains into a food web. Dingoes eat wombats as well as kangaroos, and both of those eat grasses. Draw grass at the bottom, the two herbivores above it, and the dingo at the top with arrows from both. A food web, as the WA fact sheet says, “shows how food chains interconnect.” Ask your child: what might happen to the dingo if a drought left less grass?
Try a decomposer hunt
- Find a spot. A pile of dead leaves, a compost heap or the ground under a log.
- Guess first. How many worms, mushrooms, and snails or slugs will you find?
- Look gently. Move the leaves with a stick and look closely for a few minutes. A magnifying glass helps.
- Tally. Make a mark for each one you see, then compare with your guesses.
- Put it back. Leave everything as you found it, so the creatures can keep working.
Let a grown-up lift any log or rock, wear gardening gloves, and don’t touch spiders, ants or snakes. Better Health Channel advises washing hands carefully with soap and water after handling soil. If you’re out in the middle of the day, our sun safety post has the SunSmart steps.
What children learn about food chains at school
In Victoria, children in Levels 3 and 4 learn that “consumers, producers and decomposers have different roles and interactions within a habitat; food chains can be used to represent feeding relationships” (VC2S4U03). Examples include “observing living things in a local habitat and categorising them as producers, consumers or decomposers” and “researching the different types of decomposers and the importance of these within a habitat”. The Levels 3 and 4 achievement standard sums it up: “They identify the roles of organisms in a habitat, and construct food chains.”
In the Australian Curriculum (AC9), the same idea sits in Year 4: students “explain the roles and interactions of consumers, producers and decomposers within a habitat and how food chains represent feeding relationships” (AC9S4U01).
KidStudy’s Year 3 Science lesson Food Chains covers producers (plants that make their own food using sunlight), consumers, herbivores, carnivores and omnivores, and decomposers such as fungi and worms that turn dead leaves into soil. Its home activity is a decomposer hunt with a tally of worms, mushrooms, and snails and slugs. For more hands-on science, try our kitchen science experiments.
Questions parents ask
What is a food chain in simple words?
A food chain shows who eats what. It starts with a producer, usually a plant, then goes to the animal that eats it, then to the animal that eats that one, like grass, then a kangaroo, then a dingo.
What is the difference between producers, consumers and decomposers?
Producers, such as plants, make their own food using sunlight. Consumers are animals that eat plants or other animals. Decomposers, such as fungi, bacteria and worms, break down dead plants and animals and return nutrients to the soil.
Which way do the arrows go in a food chain?
From the thing being eaten to the thing that eats it. The arrow shows where the food and its energy go next, so it points from the grass to the kangaroo, not the other way.
What is an Australian food chain example?
Grass, then an eastern grey kangaroo, then a dingo. Or leaves, then a ringtail possum, then a powerful owl. Or acacia, then a cicada, then a green tree frog, then a freshwater crocodile.
Is a koala a herbivore?
Yes. The Australian Museum says koalas eat the leaves of certain eucalypts, plus some flowers and stems. They only eat plants, so they are herbivores.
Are people herbivores, carnivores or omnivores?
The curriculum asks children to describe how animals, “including humans”, get food from plants and other animals. People who eat both plants and animals are omnivores. People who eat only plants are eating like herbivores.
Sources
- Feeding relationships 3: All about food webs (fact sheet), developed for the Department of Education WA, The University of Western Australia
- Cycles of life in the rainforest (fact sheet 9), NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service
- Life cycles: teacher’s notes, Australian National Botanic Gardens
- Mycology, Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria
- What is soil?, Queensland Government
- Australian Museum animal pages: Koala, Eastern Grey Kangaroo, Common Wombat, Dingo, Common Ringtail Possum, Powerful Owl, Wedge-tailed Eagle, Tawny Frogmouth and Emu
- Legionnaires’ disease, Better Health Channel
- Victorian Curriculum F–10 Version 2.0: Science, VCAA
- Australian Curriculum v9.0: Science, Year 4, ACARA
